Ten Hag hits out at Carragher’s ‘subjective’ Man United talk،
Erik Ten Hag has responded to Jamie Carragher's criticism of Manchester United's performance against Fulham and suggested he thinks the former Liverpool defender was unfair in much of his analysis of his team.
Carragher, a Sky Sports pundit, accused United's players of “not knowing their job from kick-off” during the 2-1 defeat to Fulham on Saturday.
– Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (US)
But in a press conference on Tuesday, Ten Hag branded Carragher a “subjective” rather than objective expert and suggested the former England international was being unfair when discussing United.
“First of all, some analysts are very objective in their comments, very good advice, others are very subjective,” Ten Hag said.
“Jamie Carragher was critical from the start and now he wants to make his point.”
Ten Hag acknowledged that some of Carragher's points about United's midfield problems were valid, but the Dutch coach insisted his side had sorted out the problems quickly.
“Probably in the first half hour, yes, he got a point,” said Ten Hag, who takes his side to Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup fifth round on Wednesday.
“Fulham in their midfield is a little surprised [us] and then we have to find the solutions. After half an hour we found the solutions, I was not happy with the performance of the defense, especially on the left side, the way we did the pressing because they came out, especially in the first half. hour, several times on the left side. and that can't happen.
“It has to do with the will, the spirit, the passion, which has been very good for this team in the previous weeks and so we have won football matches.”
Carragher was blunt in his assessment of the performance against Fulham, focusing particularly on the gap between United's defenders and midfielders.
“Twenty seconds into the game against Fulham, that's been Manchester United's problem all season, there's space between the back four and the midfield,” Carragher said on Sky Sports on Monday.
“We explain why they are poor defensively and cannot handle counter-attacks, they have no pace in defense and lack legs in midfield.”
Ten Hag admitted the display at Old Trafford had been poor, but pointed to a seven-game unbeaten run to start 2024 as proof the team was heading in the right direction.
“We have been undefeated since January and February and lost one game,” Ten Hag said.
We know our aim is to win every game, that's United. Obviously it was a poor performance for a defeat, we are aware of that.
“I know footballers are not robots, sometimes they have bad days. But it's not possible, it's unacceptable. We have to do better tomorrow [against Forest] but in the weeks leading up to it, we did very well.”
