Assessing Man Utd's start to the Premier League season | Football Digest
Under-fire Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag has called on his players to improve defensively as the pressure continues to ramp up ahead of their trip to Burnley. The Red Devils have lost four of their last five games across all competitions and tensions within the dressing room have recently spilled out after the 4-3 Champions League loss away to Bayern Munich on Wednesday.
The Dutch boss has been accused of having favourites within the dressing room whom he is not prepared to criticise, while others have been chastised. The comments come amid a disappointing run of form that has left United 13th in the Premier League table.
While only Wolves and their Saturday evening opponents Burnley have a worse defensive record in the league than United, as Ten Hag has seen his side concede a whopping 10 goals from their opening five games before then shipping a further four to Bayern in mid-week – but the boss has warned his players that they must improve at the back.
“It’s about 11 players who do their job,” Ten Hag said. “I always tell my players we attack with 11 and defend with 11. When one or two are not doing their job, it’s like a pack of cards. So that is not only one or two players.”
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It marks a big contrast to last season, when David de Gea won the Premier League Golden Glove award for most clean sheets in the division with 17. The Spanish stopper, meanwhile, is reportedly considering retirement having been left without a club as Andre Onana was drafted in from Inter Milan to replace him in the summer for £47.2million.
But when asked in his press conference whether he knew why his defence has seen such a dramatic drop-off, Ten Hag bluntly replied: “No. When you are in a period like we are in, you are asking yourself these questions. My job is to get them to do the job. We have shown that we can do it.
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“Last year we had the most clean sheets in the Premier League because we defended very well as a team. We have to get back to those standards.
“I am pushing the team and demanding from the team. So why are they not doing it? I try to find out, I try to get and give solutions and try to motivate the players to do the job.”
Ten Hag has seen several members of his backline sidelined through injury, as Luke Shaw and Aaron Wan-Bissaka are likely to miss the trip to Turf Moor but there is a chance that Raphael Varane could return after Ten Hag revealed that he was back in training.
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