TEN HAG’S PAIN AS UNITED HIT ROCK BOTTOM
ERIK TEN HAG last night branded Manchester United ‘rubbish’ as they crashed to a pitiful 4-0 defeat at Brentford.
Ten Hag was left fuming after looking on in disbelief as United shipped four goals inside 35 dismal minutes against the rampant Bees.
And it left club legend Gary Neville to compare Ronaldo and his humiliated team-mates to an under-nines side.
It was United’s seventh straight league away defeat — and left them rock bottom of the table for the first time since 1992.
‘It’s rubbish, it’s poor, we need higher standards than that,’ raged Ten Hag after goals from Josh Dasilva, Ben Mathias Jensen, Ben Mee and Bryan Mbeumo condemned United to a desperate loss.
And the new Old Trafford chief — the first United boss in over a century to lose his first two games following last week’s grim effort against Brighton — left no one in any doubt who was to blame.
‘The good players we had should have been better,’ he stormed. Ten Hag made three substitutions after the first-half horror show and went on: ‘I could have changed another eight.
‘You can have a plan but the plan went into the bin. I can bring up several reasons why but that looks like excuses, and excuses are not there. At the top we have to deliver and we didn’t do that.’
Goalkeeper David de Gea publicly apologised after allowing Dasilva’s shot to squirm through his grasp for the opener, while there was more shocking defending to gift Brentford their second.
After that, United fell apart. ‘When you make mistakes like
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allow the left-back to get near him, and finished coolly to put Brentford 4-0 up in 35 minutes.
It was stunning stuff and almost as impressive was the manner in which Brentford controlled the second half.
Fred, Shaw and Martinez were withdrawn as Ten Hag attempted to impose some control. But the game was gone.
United, embarrassingly, never had a plan or the wit to break down Brentford’s defensive block. They were reduced to abject crosses from wide.
On one occasion, Ronaldo did meet one and send his header over. He thumped the ground in pure frustration. The crowd jeered. It seemed apposite. He was raging against the dying light of his career. He once could produce heroics to save teams. But not now, not at this age and not this team.