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6 months ago
43 Manchester United are FA Cup champions are stunning Man City with a 2-1 win at Wembley.
Teenage duo Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho scored the goals for the winning side.
United went into the game as underdogs but Erik ten Hag’s game plan couldn’t have went any better. The Dutchman made a decision to drop Casemiro and Rasmus Hojlund, only for the Dane to come on a play a key role in the second half.
The BBC grabbed Ten Hag after the match to get his immediate thoughts on the win. He has led United to three finals, winning trophy trophies in his first two years yet there is still speculation over his future. That comes from a difficult league campaign as United finished eighth – but at least by winning the FA Cup we’ve secured qualification to the Europa League.
“All compliments to the team,” Ten Hag told the BBC, as quoted by Dazn. “We played very good to our identity. Very strong. You have seen how we can play when we have the players on board. Some were not even match fit but the performance was very good.
“I tell you this all year – when the players are fit we can play good football. A very good performance against the best team in the world.
“With a local rivalry it’s there and it’s much more important when you play a team from your own city. But for us it wasn’t about this, it was to prove a point after so many setbacks. The team showed so much resilience and I’m proud of them.”
Ten Hag calls out Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer
Ten Hag told Gary Lineker live on the BBC that he and his players have been unfairly treated by the Beeb presenter and the rest of the media this season following Saturday’s FA Cup final victory over City.
Lineker was at Wembley on presenter duty, thinking everyone was happy to see him. Except they weren’t. Ten Hag had some words for the former England international live on air and it made for brilliant television.
The United manager recently complained about media coverage on the club’s season. Lineker asked him during a post-match interview whether he felt ‘unfairly treated’ by the media including ‘the likes of ourselves’, while pointing to Alan Shearer, Wayne Rooney and Micah Richards.
“I think so,” he said, as per The Express. “The team, me as well, it was not right.”
Shearer jumped in: “The only thing I would say to that though… you had a team out there today who showed a great attitude, great ability, won every single tackle. That hasn’t always been the case this season though, has it? So you can understand why we do criticise sometimes. If you played like that every single week, you wouldn’t have finished in eighth. Today was unbelievable.”
Ten Hag put Shearer in his place by replying: “We didn’t have the players [due to injuries]. You’re right, we’ve seen the same things, there was not always good football. Definitely not. But we had to make all the time compromises.
“Then you can’t play the football you want to play. I’m now two years here and probably three or four times we had a full squad. Today some massive players – Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw, Casemiro – were not in the squad.”
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