Man Utd moving in ‘right direction’ despite loss – Ten Hag

Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag said the club was heading in the “right direction” despite the defeat to Fulham and added that “the whole situation looks very good” for the club.

Fulham won 2-1 at Old Trafford on Saturday in United's first match since Sir Jim Ratcliffe's purchase of a minority stake in the club was officially confirmed.

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The result leaves Ten Hag's side eight points off the top four with 12 matches remaining, but the Dutch coach said he hopes Ratcliffe looks beyond what is turning into a disastrous campaign.

“After a loss, you have to look at the big picture, and the big picture looks very good,” Ten Hag said.

“We need to catch up in some positions and recover from injuries, then we will be more balanced and also strengthen the team in the transfer windows.

“You see, there are a lot of good players coming in and real players with high potential. They're going to improve, so we're definitely going in the right direction.”

Fulham needed a 97th-minute winner from Alex Iwobi to claim their first win at Old Trafford since 2003 after Harry Maguire's 89th-minute equalizer canceled out Calvin Bassey's opener midway through the second period.

Subsequently, Ten Hag was left to rue his growing injury list which now includes Luke Shaw and Rasmus Højlund. Casemiro started the match but was forced off the field in the second half with a head injury.

“So when we have the players available, we have a very good team,” Ten Hag said. “Today we could have won this game, although we should have won this game because the team showed great character. We definitely had two slow starts in both halves.

“It was a big loss to lose Casemiro. We lost a bit of stability in the team, then conceded a goal which was very avoidable and then fought back in the match. I have to thank the team, they did show of great character. Then we went for victory, but in the end we let them slip away.”