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6 months ago
24 Former Manchester United first-team coach Rene Meulensteen says the Reds showed “no heart and no passion” in Monday night’s disappointing 4-0 defeat to Crystal Palace.
Of course, Meulensteen wouldn’t be wrong. United didn’t pull a single punch on Crystal Palace and rode out a limp 4-0 defeat in a game we really needed to win.
Erik ten Hag’s side now run the risk of missing out on European qualification ahead of next season.
“Yes, it was a pretty awful night, it was not good viewing from a Manchester United point of view,” Meulensteen told BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast, as per BBC Sport.
“There was no structure, but also no heart and no passion. And the worrying thing is that Erik ten Hag said they had a week to prepare for this game, so you set out a plan, your tactics, your defence – but all the players have a job to do whether that’s in possession or out of possession.”
United played without any organisation and lacked structure. There was nothing to our transitional play, which was non-existent for the most part.
The result puts Ten Hag under even more pressure but Meulensteen – who worked under Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford – believes multiple parties are at fault for the club’s predicament.
United currently sit eighth in the Premier League standings, but have an FA Cup final to look forward to later this month.
“It is not just the players, everyone is accountable,” he added.
“Ten Hag is responsible for bringing a lot of those players, he’s responsible for the system of play and the preparation. The players then have to respond to that but clearly somewhere it is disjointed.
“And he [Ten Hag] says after the game that they didn’t follow their rules, and there’s two reasons why that happens – either they don’t want to or they can’t, because they don’t have that quality. So yeah, it is a tough situation.
“Where as Oliver Glasner is still quite new to Crystal Palace but look at what he has achieved in the space of just a few months. He has turned around a team that was quite lost but now they look so confident and that is not the case for United.
“From my own experience, for any manager that is given a new squad and new players then it will take about 18 months for that to bed in, to get everyone to buy in to your way and what you want.
“Erik ten Hag is beyond that 18 months and after a reasonable season last year, this should be the season that the squad kicks on. But the problem is they have regressed.
“Inside 18 months, you’ve got the players you want, you know what you want from them and they know the expectation, and then you get the consistency in results and performances.
“That has not happened, and that is worrying when these were seen to be the group of players that were going to shape the future of the club.”
It’s easy to say United have regressed – which we have – when there has been over 60 reported cases of players missing games due to injury.
The sooner it the season ends the better.
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