Manchester United manager, Erik ten Hag stated that his team must learn from the humiliating 3-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday and focus on self-improvement.
A third defeat in United’s first six league games of the new campaign has left the Red Devils down in 11th and time is surely running out for the Dutchman.
“But we definitely have to learn and make things better. We have to get better in the pressing, and better on the ball because there were situations where we could have played better to find the spare man or play over the press to keep the ball and play from there,” Ten Hag said in the post-match interview.
“We didn’t do that and that’s disappointing,” he said.
“I don’t want to talk about progress after such a defeat. We have to deal with this, show resilience, but don’t talk about in this moment today about progress.
“We just focus now on Porto. We will close this game down, deal with it, and then we move on.
Tottenham showed they were the better side as they made a flying start when Brennan Johnson tapped in from Micky Van de Ven’s storming run after three minutes.
Ten Hag speaking on his side’s lacklustre performance in every aspect of the game said, “It’s a bad start to the game. Tottenham were dominant, we couldn’t get the right press and we also made many mistakes in possession.
“But we could have come back into the game and I think the red card changed the game.”
On the first half performance: “It was no good. It’s not possible for a player from the back can dribble through the whole team and then bring a cross in.
“The press was no good in the first half, but we concede some counter-attacks after we countered and we had some bad decision-making. We had a lot of space.”
“We then lost a little bit of confidence and we were also poor in possession. We can do better there and all the players know this.”
When asked about the referee’s decision to award a red card for Bruno Fernades’cynical tackle, the United boss said
“I don’t think it’s a red card.”
United face daunting trips to Porto in the Europa League and Aston Villa on league duty next weekend before a two-week international break that clubs often use to implement managerial change.
The travelling support taunted Ten Hag with chants of “You’re getting sacked in the morning” during the second half.
United’s new football leadership team handed the Dutchman an extension to his contract less than three months ago.
How quickly they backtrack on that decision now appears a matter of time.