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1 month ago
18 Erik ten Hag believes his Manchester United stars were guilty of losing belief after just three minutes in their 3-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur.
This is a worrying admission from the manager and it shows how mentally fragile the current team is at the moment.
During the week, United let a 1-0 goal lead slip against FC Twente in the Europa League. Today we never got going.
Brennan Johnson gave the visitors the perfect start, while United’s task was made even harder when Bruno Fernandes was sent for an early shower. It got even worse for Ten Hag as Kobbie Mainoo was forced off with an injury before the break.
Spurs took advantage of that after the break with further goals from Dejan Kulusevski and Dominic Solanke.
Speaking at full-time, Ten Hag claimed his side’s issues started instantly after Spurs opened the scoring through Johnson.
Ten Hag told BBC, as quoted by The Mirror: “To concede a goal after two or three minutes like that, it did something to our belief. Totally unnecessary.
“To concede a goal like this, the [opposing] centre-half stepping in and passing the whole team over the right side and then the winger tapping in at the far post. Same mistake as in the midweek against Twente, it should be stopped in the first moment.
“From that moment on we were stressed on the ball. We could not find the triangles or the switches, we had some good moments, but from that moment we could not get a foothold. And we can do better than that. Even after such a mistake from us we should stay calm.
“We had chances and our moments to get back in the game, with Joshua Zirkzee and Alejandro Garnachowhen we still had 11 players and then after the red card too we had moments.
“We had our chances before half-time and in the second half with 10 men we had chances as well. It definitely had an impact on the game. I don’t think it was a red card.
“First we have to deal with this and show resilience. This is not good enough. We have to accept this and get better. Focus on the next game and do things better than we did today.”
In reaction to Fernandes’ red card, Ten Hag said: “I don’t think it’s a red card. I also said we had big chances for Zirkzee and even for Rashford, ball on the post from Garnacho. It’s only 1-0 so we could have made a comeback and I think it [the red card] had a big impact on the game.”
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