Ten Hag on Man Utd win: First half was a ‘mess’

Head coach Erik ten Hag branded Manchester United‘s first-half performance “a mess” and “rubbish” despite eventually beating Leicester City 3-0 at Old Trafford on Sunday.

United dominated the second half to move within five points of leaders Arsenal at the top of the table, but afterwards Ten Hag did not hide his disappointment with the first 45 minutes.

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“I was really unhappy with our performance,” Ten Hag told a postmatch news conference.

“We have to follow the rules and principles of our way of playing. When we don’t, it is a mess. When we face a good opponent like Leicester they have chances and it’s only down to David De Gea that we don’t concede a goal. We were really lucky at half-time that we were one goal up. It was a great goal but the rest, it is rubbish.”

Victory over Leicester came 48 hours after the first bids for the club were confirmed by Qatari banker Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani and British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

United have a Europa League tie against Barcelona and the Carabao Cup final against Newcastle on Sunday and Ten Hag has told his players they can not be distracted by takeover talk.

“We are committed to this club,” the United manager said.

“It is our club, in our heart but it is not our job [to focus on the takeover]. We focus on football and perform and that is what the players and staff have to do.”

The Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST) said on Sunday any new owner must respect the rights of LGBTQ+ fans and commit to continuing the Premier League club’s progress on the field.

“There are questions about sporting integrity given the exceptionally close links between some bidders and the owners of other European clubs including Paris Saint-Germain and Nice,” MUST said.

“We also note the importance that any owner respects the rights of all people, particularly women and the LGBTQ+ community,” the group added.

“Concerns have been raised by other fans groups which we fully support.”

Leicester, meanwhile, were left to rue missing three good chances in the opening 20 minutes with the score at 0-0 while manager Brendan Rodgers also felt United were lucky to keep 11 men on the pitch after a high challenge from Marcel Sabitzer on Wout Faes.

“It’s a sending off, a straight leg onto the knee,” Rodgers said.

“How it was not looked at and deemed that is incredible. The last few weeks some of the decisions we have seen. Someone has said it was after an incident but I don’t buy that. He has straight legged him right on his knee.”

Information from Reuters contributed to this report.