Ten Hag: We have to learn from this

Thursday 04 April 2024 23:25

Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag felt his team should have managed the game better in the closing stages as the Reds were beaten 4-3 by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the Premier League.

The Blues raced into a two-goal lead through Conor Gallagher and Cole Palmer before United also scored twice, through Alejandro Garnacho and Bruno Fernandes, to level the game at 2-2 by half-time.

Antony's superb outside-of-the-foot pass set up Garnacho to make it 3-2, with the Reds heading into the final stages looking set to register a famous comeback win.

With eight minutes of injury time already elapsed, Chelsea were awarded a penalty with Diogo Dalot having adjudged to have fouled Noni Madueke. Cole Palmer stepped up to make it 3-3, before the Three Lions international smashed home the winner with almost the last kick of the game.

When asked for his thoughts by various reporters following the full-time whistle, Ten Hag couldn't hide his disappointment and below, you can read what he made of the defeat...

BETTER CONTROL"We started poor by giving the ball away, defending poorly on the first two occasions. But by that moment already, you saw we were dominating the game and we returned in the game. It was brilliant how we played and we deserved to win this game. But you can't give it away like we did."

BAD DECISIONS"It's a team performance and of course you can point to one of the players. But it's not about that. It's about team performance. As I said, as a team, in such moments, when it gets chaotic, you have to deal with such circumstances as a team and we didn't. We made the wrong decisions and we didn't help each other in possession as well. [We should have been] keeping the ball, going from one side to the other side, or at least pass and move. In and out of possession, we made bad decisions."

MOVING FORWARD "It's definitely a setback, but now we have to deal with this, to get up again and we will do. We are resilient. You have seen today how resilientwe are, how we returned in the game, the quality of our football, how wecan play outstanding football in moments, some really high [moments]. But football is about results and you have to bring it over the time."

BRILLIANT AT TIMES"In between and also before the goals, we were unbelievable, but we made unexpected errors. The first goal, that is an unexpected error and we conceded a goal. So individual errors make it a bad result, but the team performance was brilliant and we played outstanding and dominated the game. In offence we had some brilliant players for example, this evening, like Antony."

INJURY TIME "I don't know where they got the eight minutes. I don't know where they came from. But in the last minutes of the game, we as a team have to manage the game better."

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