On the back of suffering a 5-2 aggregate loss to Sevilla, Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag was understandably disappointed with the result.
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Manchester United were humbled 3-0 by an inspired Sevilla side in the second leg of the Europa League quarter-final. The Red Devils looked a shadow of their usual self, as the home side ran the show at Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan Stadium. Individual errors did not help United’s cause either as they crashed out of the competition. It is hard to imagine that at one point Manchester United were cruising to a 2-0 lead in the first leg. However, late deflected goals helped the Spaniards to level it up 2-2 before winning the second leg by a comfortable margin.
On the back of suffering a 5-2 aggregate loss to Sevilla, Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag was understandably disappointed with the result and performance. “I think they [the players] showed in the past they can [perform], but tonight we weren’t good enough. It was obvious, it was clear. We didn’t match the standards that you can expect from a team like Manchester United. We have to be better. Everyone can expect higher standards from Manchester United,” ten Hag, quoted as saying by the club’s website, said after the match to the media.
“A disappointing performance. It was not good enough. We have to do better. No composure on the ball and we made the wrong decisions to quickly concede the goal and we never came into the game. We changed [things] but, straight after half-time, [we conceded] another goal which was avoidable. It can’t happen at our level.”
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Despite few individual errors playing a big role in the defeat, ten Hag refused to point the finger at any one particular player. “It’s always about the team performance. Win together, lose together. We deal with the setback and have to deal with that. It is clear when we make these mistakes, it is difficult to win a football game. We have to be better, that is the demand. I think we lost a bit of our coolness in the build-up, they went high pressure, we didn’t really do well with that, I think we made more mistakes than we normally do,” he added.
“I think that the whole team today, we couldn’t catch up on the mistakes that team-mates made. I think every football player makes mistakes in the game, of course, mistakes like this, they punish us straight away on this level, so of course, we had to take that away. In the end, I think it’s how you bounce back from the mistakes, and I think today, we weren’t strong enough to bounce back from the mistakes we gave them.”
Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan Stadium was electric throughout the game as the local crowd gave their maximum support to the home side. When asked whether the atmosphere played a part, ten Hag replied, “I don’t think it’s anything with that, I think take away anywhere where we play, if we give away the goals we do today, I think we’ll lose. So that’s nothing to do with the atmosphere. I just think our own game wasn’t strong enough. [Did the crowd and Sevilla surprise you?] No, absolutely not. We were prepared for their intensity. We didn’t take the right decisions on the pitch.”
