LONDON, England — This is descending into the worst season Manchester United have ever had in the Premier League. And Crystal Palace helped nudge them down that dismal path as they swiped aside Erik ten Hag’s side with a completely dominant 4-0 win at Selhurst Park on Monday.
The hosts exploited their injury-hit opponents, pulled apart their new-look combinations and at times toyed with them like a cat playing with a piece of string. They comfortably defeated Ten Hag’s beleaguered side thanks to a performance of wonderful attacking ruthlessness spearheaded by their brilliant trio upfront of Michael Olise, Eberechi Eze, and Jean-Philippe Mateta.
Ten Hag has been battling an ever-growing injury list at United this season, and had Bruno Fernandes, Harry Maguire and Scott McTominay all adding to the absent contingent in the build-up to this trip to South London. Their absences meant Casemiro and Jonny Evans became the 14th different centre-back combination fielded by Ten Hag this season as he looked to paper over the cracks.
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But Evans and Casemiro looked lost and were no match against the movement and genius of their confident, creative opponents. Olise finished with two, their first and fourth – and could’ve had more — while Mateta scored a brilliant first half goal and Tyrick Mitchell grabbed another in the second half.
The post-mortem will be brutal from a Manchester United perspective. If ever they watch back footage from referee Jarred Gillet’s “Ref-Cam”, then it’ll provide a neat alternative to the Blair Witch Project. It’s difficult to pinpoint one area where they fell apart — it was a comprehensive capitulation. And few struggled more than the vastly experienced Casemiro who had an awful match. He was completely at sea for Palace’s opener through Olise, and then guilty of getting caught on the ball for the second and fourth goals.
But his struggles just fitted into what felt like a moment; an embarrassment that could hasten action at the end of the season from United’s new minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe. This was surely the nadir of a poor campaign. There’s long-standing uncertainty over Ten Hag’s future at the club — no forthcoming backing from the new chiefs — and while they still have an FA Cup final to look forward to, this was a brutal reality check.
It was United’s 13th defeat in the Premier League this season, bringing up a new unwanted club record, surpassing the 12 losses they conceded in the 2013-14 and 2021-22 campaigns. And following a weekend where both Newcastle United and Chelsea won convincingly, this defeat sees them remain in eighth — which would be their worst finish in the Premier League era. On the flip side, this win marked the first time Palace have done the league double over Manchester United after they won 1-0 in the reverse fixture back in September. The Eagles are soaring.
“This was the fourth defeat in 2024, so far,” said Ten Hag post-match. “You have always seen a team that was following a script, we had a lot of wins and were hard to beat, and today we weren’t hard to beat,” said Ten Hag post-match.
“It’s very disappointing, the worst defeat, they should’ve done better. It was not correct, making big mistakes, not following the plan and script and the moves we have. We can make mistakes, but we didn’t cover each other and it was a bad defeat.”
But the worrying thing for United? This defeat could and should have been heavier. Olise scored a brilliant opener in the 12th minute as he danced past a reckless Casemiro to run at the heart of the United defence and then finished brilliantly past André Onana.
They added a wonderful second in the 40th minute as United managed to get themselves into a midfield tangle and lost the ball through Casemiro.
