Angry Ten Hag takes swipe at ‘rubbish’ Reds
ERIK ten Hag labelled United’s first-half performance against Leicester as ‘rubbish.’
The Reds were fortunate to lead 1-0 at half-time through Marcus Rashford’s clinical 25th-minute strike after Harvey Barnes and Kelechi Iheanacho were brilliantly denied by David de Gea with the game goalless.
Rashford was played onside by Leicester centre-back Harry Souttar from Bruno Fernandes’s perceptive pass and Ten Hag claimed only those two pieces of play were exempt from criticism.
“I was really unhappy by our performance,” Ten Hag said of the first half.
“We have to follow the rules and principles from our way of playing. When you don’t, it becomes a mess and when you face a good opponent like Leicester, you concede chances.
“And it was only down to David de Gea that we don’t concede a goal. So we were really lucky at half-time that we were 1-0 up. Of course, a great pass by Bruno, a great finish by Rashy. But for the rest was rubbish.”
United emerged for the secondhalf unrecognsiable from the first and were 3-0 up within 16 minutes of the restart through a second Rashford goal and substitute Jadon Sancho.
Ten Hag stressed the Reds players were unhappy with their efforts at half-time and admitted that the integration of Marcel Sabitzer, signed on loan from Bayern Munich less than three weeks ago, had impacted United’s balance with Casemiro suspended for three Premier League games.
“They (the players) knew. I could see about their behaviour at half-time. They were not happy, as well,” Ten Hag added.
“I could see they were disappointed by their performance. We could do so much better and they knew it.
“But they are not robots, that’s first and we have to bring in a crucial position Sabitzer and then he has to know how to move in the timings of the occasions to create the right situations. It takes time but we don’t have time, we have to win games so everything has to go perfect. When you don’t, you see this league is tough and opponents are really competitive, they are good, they have good players and you can get punished.”
Of course, a great pass by Bruno, a great finish by Rashy. But for the rest was rubbish Erik ten Hag