Erik ten Hag has hit back at Jamie Carragher’s criticism of Manchester United’s tactical setup throughout their defeat to Fulham.
Fulham ended Man Utd’s run of 4 wins on the bounce on Saturday, scoring a 97th-minute winner at Old Trafford to earn a 2-1 victory.
While the loss was the Red Devils’ first in February, it was their 14th in all competitions all through the 2023/24 season, and led to a quantity of quite worrying statistics concerning the membership’s kind going viral – essentially the most notable of which was solely Sheffield United have conceded extra pictures than United’s 435 within the Premier League up to now this season.
Analysing Man Utd’s defensive woes throughout Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football, ex-Liverpool defender Carragher highlighted the space between the membership’s defence and midfield as being a key purpose for the quantity of probabilities created by opposition groups.
Asked to answer Carragher’s feedback, Ten Hag stated: “First of all, some analysts are very objective in their comments. Very good advice, some are very subjective. Jamie Carragher from the first moment on has criticised and now he wants to make his point.
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“Probably within the first half an hour, yeah, he had some extent. Fulham of their midfield arrange shocked us somewhat bit after which we have now to search out the options. After half an hour we discovered the options.
“I was not pleased with the performance with the defending, especially on the left side, how we did the pressing because they came out, especially in the first half an hour. Several times on the left side and that can’t happen and that has to do with willingness, spirit, passion. That was in the previous weeks very good for this team and therefore, we won football games.
“I do know footballers will not be robots, generally they’ve unhealthy, days. But it will probably’t be, it is unacceptable, we have now to do higher tomorrow however within the weeks earlier than we have now finished very properly.”
Ten Hag’s side will be aiming to keep just their second clean sheet of 2024 when they face off against Nottingham in the fifth round of the FA Cup on Wednesday evening.
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