Erik ten Hag fumes at Man Utd flops for making 'same mistake' in Tottenham defeat
Manchester United slumped to an embarrassing 3-0 defeat at the hands of Tottenham on Sunday afternoon and it leaves under pressure boss Erik ten Hag on extremely thin ice
by Daniel Orme · The MirrorErik ten Hag believes his Manchester United stars lost belief after just THREE minutes in their thumping against Spurs.
The Red Devils slumped to another humiliating home defeat under the Dutchman. Brennan Johnson gave the visitors the perfect start, whiile United's task was made even harder by Bruno Fernandes' first-half red card.
Spurs took advantage of that after the break with further goals from Dejan Kulusevski and Dominic Solanke. Speaking after the full-time whistle, Ten Hag claimed that his side's issues started instantly after Spurs' strike in the opening few minutes.
As quoted by Match of the Day, he said: "To concede a goal after two or three minutes like that, it did something to our belief. Totally unneccessary.
"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 Garnacho when 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."
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"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."
Despite slamming his side, Ten Hag claimed that Fernandes' red card potentially turned the game in Spurs' favour. Speaking to Sky Sports, he added: “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.”
Ten Hag now faces a key week as he attempts to convince the Red Devils club hierarchy that he is the right man for the job. United go to Porto in their second Europa League group game in midweek. They then face another testing game as they travel to Villa Park to take on Aston Villa.
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