Manchester United suffered a humbling 3-1 defeat at the hands of their cross-city rivals, Manchester City on Sunday.
As is sadly often the case against the Cityzens these days, it wasn’t so much the score, but the manner in which the Red Devils were dominated, that irritated United fans.
Ten Hag’s side took a shock lead in the eighth minute with a thunderous effort from Marcus Rashford and held on until the second half before Phil Foden replied with an equally wondrous strike.
The Red Devils clung on for dear life but inevitably conceded a second in the 80th minute and Sofyan Amrabat gifted City a third in additional time.
A solid afternoon’s work, if you are in the lower reaches of the table aiming to avoid relegation.
United have the most expensively assembled squad in the world yet approached the task with less adventure than fourth division Newport County did against United in the cup back in January.
However, the most shocking aspect of the afternoon was not what happened on the pitch but what was said off it.
United coach, Erik ten Hag, perplexed and infuriated fans in equal measure when he claimed that his side lost by “fine margins”.
The official club website report that Ten Hag stated after the game, “I think [it was a] good performance from our side. We went 1-0 up and [played] according to the plan. We had our moments after it as well, to go for a second one. I think we defended very well. But then [there were] two I will say defining moments where we almost make a breakthrough and we conceded the first goal and also the second goal after also a defining moment”.
He also told Sky Sports that there were “really small margins” in the game and on another day “they could have won”.
Let’s examine these “small margins” then.
City had 27 total shots and eight on target. United bravely managed three and one on target. Rashford’s screamer had a 0.03xG, remember.
Pep Guardiola’s side had a mammoth 73% of the ball but in all honesty, fans watching the game would probably be surprised by how low that is when United could barely hold the ball for longer than 3 seconds.
For City, the ball was something to cherish, for United, a ticking time bomb.
Consequently, the team from the blue side of the city racked up 801 passes to United’s 305. For good measure, the home team had 15 corners to the Red Devils’ two.
You do not need to be a genius tactician to realise these are not small margins.
For context, in the aforementioned FA Cup tie earlier in the season, League Two Newport County had 17 shots to United’s 22 and seven shots on target to the Red Devil’s nine. Those are small margins, Erik.
Even last night when the rancid Sheffield United lost 0-6 at home to Arsenal in their latest battering, they had one more shot than United managed against the European champions.
You could argue key moments, like Ten Hag did, went against United such as Kyle Walker taking down Marcus Rashford before Foden’s first or Ederson’s strong tackle on Alejandro Garnacho before the second goal but when a team is so dominant, incidents like these pale into insignificance in the bigger picture.
The worrying thing is this is a trend for United under Ten Hag.
United have played away to Liverpool, City and Arsenal losing by a 6-2 aggregate this season. However, according to The Manchester Evening News, it is the statistics behind these games that are the real concern.
Anyone can lose to the modern version of Arsenal and City. Any team should be content with a draw at Anfield. United fans’ contention is how they have done it.
In the three away days against the Premier League’s top three, “United were outshot 78 to 19. The xG in those matches is 7.9 to 2.0. The corner count is 30 to four. Ten Hag’s side had 36 touches in the opposition’s penalty area across the 270 minutes, while Arsenal, Liverpool and City had 156 in United’s”.
This is not one giant team travelling to another aiming to win, this is how minnows approach terrifying trips to the big boys.
To add insult to injury, it is just insulting to fans when the manager speaks like this. United have an intelligent fanbase who know their football. Anybody can see the team was outplayed by any metric on Sunday. Hiding behind “small margins” is inexcusable and it will most likely see the manager lose his job in the long run as he is seemingly incapable of approaching big away days in any other way.
