Erik ten Hag insists Manchester United’s Anfield humiliation has not altered his summer transfer plans – but has warned his players there cannot be a repeat.
The stunning 7-0 loss to Liverpool followed 6-3 and 4-0 setbacks to Manchester City and Brentford earlier in the season and raised serious question marks over the team’s alarming ability to implode.
But Ten Hag will not allow the club’s heaviest defeat since 1931 to influence his recruitment strategy, believing that after a run of only one defeat in the previous 22 games it was more a blip rather than a sign his squad needs a major rebuild.
The Dutchman kept faith with the players who were shamed on Merseyside by naming an unchanged team against Real Betis in the Europa League on Thursday and was encouraged by the way they bounced back with a 4-1 victory that should ensure their passage to the quarterfinals.
But Ten Hag has demanded that standards do not drop again and told his players to keep working on improvements as United chase a silverware treble and a top four place – or futures could be at stake.
United have been linked with moves for Harry Kane and long-term target Frenkie de Jong but asked if the Liverpool mauling had prompted a change of mind over summer transfers, he replied: “No, it can’t change after one game.
“There is a continuing process and it’s already in the background. At the moment the main focus is game to game. The next game is always the most important and that’s Southampton.
“We have to improve our game and every player has to improve it. Always in bad times you learn a lot but also the positive is that you need bad times to find out what is the character, what is the personality of the team. You always coach and mentor the team in such moments to progress .
“No matter how bad it is, you use it as a tool to get better in the future. Sometimes you have to get the bad result where everyone opens their eyes.”
Apart from the Anfield debacle, Ten Hag was also unhappy with parts of the performances in the recent wins over Leicester in the League, West Ham in the FA Cup and even against Newcastle in the Carabao Cup final.
Liverpool, Tottenham and Newcastle are all chasing a top four spot to clinch Champions League qualification next season and Ten Hag wants a collective show of character plus relentless consistency from his squad at the business end of the campaign.
“It is a big challenge if you want to win silverware,” he said. “And as the season goes on, and you are going for the final positions in the league and the trophies, the pressure will become higher and higher for every team.
“You need a strong character as a team, you need determination, you need resilience, you need a team with personalities and I think we’ve already shown several times this season that this team can deal with set-backs.
“Against Betis we have seen an example of that, but after Brentford, Manchester City and Arsenal we also bounced back. Betis was part one and Southampton has to be another one.
“I think with this team we can rely on the fact they can bounce back. It demands a lot of energy, a lot of togetherness from a lot of players to get the performances that we showed against Betis.
“We go from game to game. We are not looking over our shoulders. We have to focus on our process and what others are doing is not for us. So we have to win games and do that game after game.”
Marcus Rashford can reach the 30-goal mark for club and country – he has scored 26 for United and three for England at the World Cup – for the first time if he continues his hot streak against the relegation-threatened Saints at Old Trafford on Sunday but the demanding Ten Hag says the in-form England striker can still improve.
He pointed to the chance Rashford missed when the game with Liverpool was still goalless. “He had to score that chance, it would have been the first goal of the game and it would have given a different picture – and he is aware of it,” Ten Hag said.
“He is making so much progress this season and I’m happy with that but there are still a number of parts in his game that he can improve. Every time he scores it builds momentum and gives him more confidence and you can see it in his personality.”
Source: telegraph.co.uk