Erik ten Hag knows that results in pre-season friendlies hold little significance and his job will be reviewed on winning enough football matches in the Premier League and beyond. The Reds struggled last season due to a chronic injury crisis, so the biggest factor we need to focus on during pre-season is making sure our players are fully fit for the competitive campaign.
That said, Ten Hag wasn’t too happy about losing the first pre-season friendly to Rosenborg on Monday in Norway. He gave a brutally honest assessment.
Just five senior players started – including Jonny Evans, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Mason Mount, Casemiro and Marcus Rashford – and the manager made 10 outfield changes at half-time.
Interestingly, several of those senior players have been strongly linked with transfers. Only time will tell if any clubs in the market are willing to put their money where their mouth is. You could do the same with casinonodepositbonus.org.uk, if you like big wins.
It was a deserved result with one senior player admitting in his post-match interview that the team lacked communication on the pitch. That shouldn’t surprise us given the squad that Ten Hag brought to Norway was vastly inexperienced – apart from five senior players.
Ten Hag critical of anaemic performance in Trondheim
“The result is not secondary,” Ten Hag told the presenter who said it was… “Of course, we play pre-season but at Man United the standard is you win games and definitely don’t lose games.
“So if you can’t win, don’t lose the game, like we did in the last second of the game. But of course, the performance is more important and the performance was below standards.
“Let’s say he (Vitek) got the opportunity from the team to make some very good saves because the performance from the team is, by far, not good enough.
“We can talk [about] everything that is bad, but I’m not that guy. I have seen and this is not the standard for top football. Top football, you have to achieve much higher standards, starts with any individual, make sure you’re fit.
“I know we can’t be match-fit in this moment, I know you need these games. The opponent is in the league, they have a much higher fitness level but we are Man United and players from Man United, a team from Man United, should perform better.”
This could be an early sign that we could see a more stern Ten Hag this coming season. I felt last year, at times, he was worried about giving home truths to the dressing room because of how they’d react. That’s never a good sign and the manager must rise to the top in order to be successful.
Rosenborg are placed 11-th out of 16 teams in the Tippeligaen and they won the match with the only goal in the 93rd minute.
They made a series of reckless tackles during the game but Ten Hag doesn’t think any of his players will miss training as a result.
Ten Hag added: “I think there were many bad tackles first half,” Ten Hag added. “They stopped really big opportunities when we went in counter attacks and got some big knocks. But as I see it now, they will recover for training tomorrow.”