Erik ten Hag remains confident in his ability to turn things around at Manchester United, despite the Red Devils’ poor season lurching from bad to worse with Monday’s 4-0 defeat to Crystal Palace.
United produced arguably their worst performance of the season at Selhurst Park as Michael Olise scored twice for Oliver Glasner’s Eagles, with Jean-Philippe Mateta and Tyrick Mitchell also netting.
Ten Hag’s team have now won just one of their last seven Premier League games, and they sit eighth in the table with tough fixtures against Arsenal, Brighton and Hove Albion and Newcastle United to come.
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They are now in serious danger of missing out on European qualification entirely for next season, which would do little for the Dutchman’s hopes of remaining in charge for their first transfer window under the Jim Ratcliffe regime.
Asked if he was the right man to oversee yet another rebuild at Old Trafford, Ten Hag told Sky Sports: “Absolutely.
“If the right players are there and available, we have a good squad but we missed the entire backline. All season we had huge injury problems. This is the fourth defeat this calendar year, which is not a lot.
“I will keep fighting. I prepared the team in the best way I could. It was not good enough… it was not good enough by far. I take responsibility, but I will find energy and prepare them for Sunday.
“This is underperforming. We didn’t act how we wanted to, it wasn’t good enough. The fans stayed behind us and we should have kept fighting like our fans did.”
Full-time.#MUFC || #CRYMUN pic.twitter.com/S2G2BEjVEA
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) May 6, 2024
Playing out of position at centre-back, Casemiro endured a nightmare performance at Selhurst Park, seeing two goals disallowed and being at fault for at least two of Palace’s goals at the other end.
Ten Hag, however, refused to single out any of his players for criticism, saying: “You can’t put this on one player.
“It’s a team performance. The throw-in that led to the first goal… that shouldn’t happen.
“It’s down to the team, not following our rules and not adapting to a slightly different situation, not staying organised and keeping control of the situation.”
