Erik ten Hag has fired back at his critics, saying that anyone hitting out at his management of Manchester United doesn’t know anything about football or football management.
The Dutchman has indeed come in for a lot of criticism this season with his team struggling for any kind of consistency and suffering a number of nightmare defeats.
There was another of those stinging losses last time out as the Red Devils were hammered 4-0 at Crystal Palace and Ten Hag’s side now sit eighth in the Premier League with three games to play.
After crashing out of the Champions League at the group stage and producing a limp Premier League campaign, it is no surprise that Ten Hag’s position is under question, but he is adamant he should not be criticised.
Like a number of other Premier League teams this season, Manchester United have suffered a lot of injuries this season and Ten Hag believes that anyone who understands football will give him a break as a result.
‘I think the fans have the patience – you’ve seen it on Monday,’ Ten Hag said, referring to the heavy loss at Selhurst Park on Monday night.
“But when I see some comments, they don’t. And either they don’t have any knowledge about football, or they don’t have any knowledge about managing a football team. It’s possible, or they just are up to it.
‘But I think there are many people that see the problems and they are patient.’
Ten Hag also backed the club’s owners to have ‘common sense’ when deciding on his future, also taking into account of absentees he has had to deal with.
‘The [owners] have common sense,’ he said. ‘You see when we have 32 different back lines, we’ve used 13 partnerships in centre half, when they see we don’t have a left back, they know that will have a negative impact on results.
‘It’s a huge FA Cup final [against Manchester City]. We are happy to be there. It can be a highlight for this season. We know the reasons we are underperforming is because of the injuries. No team will perform when you have so many injuries in key areas.’
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