MANCHESTER, England — “Our spirit is not in question and neither is our ability,” wrote Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag in his programme notes ahead of Sheffield United‘s visit to Old Trafford on Wednesday.
“But we have repeatedly made things harder for ourselves this season than they need to be.”
Manchester United finally gave their under-fire coach some respite with a 4-2 win over the Premier League‘s bottom side, but they didn’t half make life difficult for themselves. Twice Sheffield United led and twice the travelling fans in the corner of the stadium sang “How s— must you be, we’re winning away.”
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But twice United equalised before Bruno Fernandes and Rasmus Højlund both scored in the final 10 minutes of the game to allow Ten Hag to breathe a little more easily. If he had hair, he would have pulled it out throughout this bewildering season. United’s first league win for six weeks keeps alive their faint hopes of finishing in the top four and qualifying for the Champions League while for Ten Hag, it keeps alive his hopes of staying in the job next season.
“The team showed resilience and it is not easy when you are losing the game against a compact team, as Sheffield United was,” said Ten Hag. “We outplayed them, we were calm, didn’t let them run and we created a lot of chances.
“We can’t keep making such mistakes, and the top level if you want to achieve your targets, if you want to win trophies, then you have to stop this process. We have to keep the focus, you can’t allow these mistakes. Because you make your life easier when you don’t make mistakes.”
United’s current state was probably best summed up by the commentator on the club’s in-house television channel, MUTV, who said during their coverage that “teams don’t fear Manchester United anymore.” Sheffield United are having a miserable season, but if Coventry City from the division below can come back from 3-0 down to get within a tight VAR call of winning an FA Cup semifinal, they can certainly find cracks in Ten Hag’s team. And they did.
Ten Hag has enough on his plate with 10 senior players on the injured list and new owners to impress without his available players gifting the opposition goals, but that was exactly what André Onana did. The Cameroon goalkeeper played a pass to Diogo Dalot without looking and Jayden Bogle nipped in to make sure his next act was to pick the ball out of the net.
