Manchester United head coach Erik Ten Hag was not pleased despite his team thrashing Liverpool by 4-0 on Tuesday in their preseason game in Thailand. The Dutchman admitted that it will take a lot of time for Manchester United to improve as he noticed a lot of mistakes despite a convincing win.
Erik said Liverpool played three teams before their match and they weren’t at their absolute best. Jadon Sancho, Fred and Anthony Maritial scored for the Red Devils in the first half and then Facundo Pellistri scored in the 76th minute.
Erik Ten Hag said on Manchester United TV, “[It will take] a lot of time. Believe me. I have seen a lot of mistakes. Liverpool played three teams, and they were not at their strongest. We have not overestimated this result.”
On the other hand, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was not impressed with his team performance and feels Manchester United did a fine job with their man-marking approach.
The German manager proclaimed via The Manchester Evening News: “I saw a lot of good performances in moments, but no consistency, sometimes we were in a rush, the way United defended in a man-marking system, especially in midfield, we gave the ball away and they finished the moments off, that was obvious.
The former Dortmund manager added: “The way United is playing with this man-marking idea you need more flexibility, when Harvey [Elliott] came in the middle we were more dangerous.”
Klopp added that he didn’t regret playing with a younger team in the first half-an-hour of the game. The German believes they can’t get influenced by what the other team is using.
“We have to do what is right for us, we can’t have a look at what line-up the opponent uses, United have been in training a week longer for the core group.”
He continued: “We don’t want to take anything away from United, they did really well, but we showed glimpses of our football when we really dangerous, some moments were quite freaky that we didn’t score.”
Manchester United will next face Melbourne Victory on Friday.
