Premier League
Erik Ten Hag Laments On Manchester United’s Game Management
Erik Ten Hag expressed his belief that Manchester United deserved to emerge victorious against Chelsea, despite the last-minute defeat at Stamford Bridge.
The match saw United rally from a 2-0 deficit to take a 3-2 lead with two goals from Alejandro Garnacho. However, reminiscent of their previous match against Brentford, United once again faltered in protecting a lead, allowing Cole Palmer to score a late penalty to equalize before netting the winning goal just moments later.
Ten Hag emphasized that his team had done sufficient to secure the win & emphasized the importance of not squandering opportunities as they did in the match. In his post-match comments, Ten Hag lamented, “We cannot afford to give it away like we did today.”
“Yes we started poor, kicking the ball away and defending poorly,” he told TNT Sports. “But you saw we were dominating the game and it was brilliant how we played we deserved to win the game.“But, you cannot give it away like we did and we have to manage this game better. It is a team performance, you can point to one of the players but it is about team performance.
“When it gets chaotic you have to deal with it as a team and we made the wrong decisions and we didn’t help out as a team.”
Following 31 shots faced against Brentford, Chelsea encountered an additional 28 attempts on Thursday night. This brings their total shots allowed in 2024 to 225, the highest in the Premier League during this timeframe. The matches between Chelsea & Manchester United this season saw a total of 88 shots, marking the highest number of attempts in a fixture since the 2014-15 season.
“It is ridiculous,” Ten Hag said. “We showed we were fourth ranking goals in conceding and everyone is talking to each other after.
“We are good and we have good defending as a team and a good goalkeeper so I cannot do nothing.”United stay sixth in the table, nine points behind Tottenham Hotspur & the potential Champions League qualification spot of fifth place.
They face League leaders Liverpool on Sunday with Ten Hag waiting for the team to respond.
“Definitely a setback & now we have to deal with this and get up we are resilient and you have seen that today,” he said. “The quality of our football is high, but football is about results and you have to bring it over time.”
