United Manager , Erik ten Hag Defends Team After Liverpool Loss

Manchester United manager, Erik ten Hag has expressed confidence that his side have a great chance to lift a trophy this season despite their chastening 3-0 home defeat by Liverpool.

The visitors already had a goal ruled out before Luis Diaz struck twice in seven first-half minutes at Old Trafford.

Mohamed Salah added a third nine minutes after the restart and United were fortunate to escape a repeat of their 5-0 humiliation in the same fixture in 2021.

However, Ten Hag refused to accept the negative view of the result, while intimating nobody should expect him to produce magical outcomes.

“It is not like I am Harry Potter,” he said. “You have to acknowledge that.

“For three players it was their first start of the season.

“Manuel Ugarte did not play one minute – he needs to build his fitness. Then we have to build him into the team. I am sure he will contribute to our team. It will take a couple of weeks, maybe even a month. That is the same for a lot of players.”

Ten Hag became embroiled in an argument with a journalist in his post-match media conference.

The former Ajax coach said he had a “different vision” to the one put forward around his side making the same mistakes for two years, “otherwise we wouldn’t win trophies and beat bigger opponents”.

“I don’t want to talk about positives today,” he said. “This defeat hurts for us and our fans.

“It is the third game of the season. I have had to explain this so many times. We have to build a new team. We will be fine but it is clear we have to improve.

“At the end of the season I am quite confident we will have a big chance to lift another trophy.”