Reflection - the good, the bad and the ugly

It's been a strange 2 and a bit years under ETH. Been following Utd for pretty much 40 years now, seen a lot of managers, but when I view ETH's reign, it just seems full of contradiction.

The good - 2 trophies, a first season 3rd place finish, followed by a disappointing 8th, but overall, if you looked at that alone, you might think, pretty good overall, although it's in the context of how our standards have dropped over the years that what has happened would be considered pretty good. But of course there are other things to consider.....

The bad - just never felt that ETH had the players' belief in him. Tactically questionable at times, but sometimes you can overcome that if the players are truly with you. I genuinely think that for most of the time, the players didn't give up or down tools ( I accept the odd game, the toys went out of the pram etc), more that ETH just struggled to communicate with them and get across what he really wanted. Sometimes that just happens at a club, and especially at Utd, you need it all - tactical nous, communication skills, that bit of charisma / 'X' factor. ETH just came up short in those departments.

The ugly - the inevitable style of play. Did we ever really find out how ETH wanted us to play - not on the pitch anyway. Also so many records broken for the wrong reasons - so many defeats at home, pretty much looking vulnerable to any team we played, so many losses by 3 goals or more, so many insipid performances.

I don't think anyone feels that ETH wasn't give a fair run, indeed, given so many poor performances, many would argue he got more than a fair run - there will always be disagreement of when he should have gone, but that's been done to death.

I have seen so many poor performances, and I really do think, how the hell did we manage to win 2 trophies - to me it shows that there is potential in this squad of players and surely the right manager can get them playing well, scoring goals, being able to dominate some games at least, and looking more like a team rather than a bunch of individuals.

ETH gave great effort, the highlight is the FA Cup win, the low is probably the 7-0 defeat to Liverpool. Sadly the lows far outweigh the highs for me.

I hope he does well in the future, wherever that may be.

But we move on, it seems to Amorim, and hope he has the magic touch we have been looking for.