Erik ten Hag said that Manchester United had reached their “lowest point of the season” following their 4-0 loss against Crystal Palace, but pledged to “keep fighting”.
United endured one of their worst defeats of the season at Selhurst Park, when Michael Olise stole the show with a spectacular two-goal performance. Olise’s brilliance, along with goals from Jean-Philippe Mateta and Tyrick Mitchell, added to United’s anguish, as the 4-0 defeat dropped them to ninth position in the Premier League rankings and out of European qualifying. However, Ten Hag is not ready to lose up and has stated that he would do all in his power to turn the club’s fortunes around.
In the aftermath of the defeat, when Ten Hag was asked if he was the right man for the job, he responded affirmatively, stating: “Absolutely. The right players are there. We have a good squad. I will keep fighting. I prepared the team in the best way I could. It was not good enough, it was by far not good enough. I have to take the responsibility for that. But I will find energy and I will prepare them for Sunday’s game.”
When further pressed if he thought the defeat was the lowest point of the season so far, he stated: “Yes. It was very poor how we gave the goals away, especially when we prepared the team and the conceding of the first goal is very disappointing. How easy and the easy giveaways. That shouldn’t happen and certainly not in the circumstances we are in because we have problems but then we have to help each other out. It is very disappointing. Under-performing. Definitely the worst defeat.”
Although Ten Hag took responsibility for the defeat, the Dutch manager believes that the players should also take their fair share of the blame as they made “big mistakes” and did not follow “the plan and the script.”
“We should have done better,” he said. “We are aware as a team performance, we were not correct, making big mistakes and not following the plan and the script. And the rules we have. Of course also individual mistakes, but then we should cover each other which we didn’t do. We let each other down and then you get the worst defeat.
“This was the fourth defeat in 2024, so far, you have always seen a team that was following a script, we had a lot of wins and were hard to beat, and today we weren’t hard to beat. Yes, I am sure they had the right intention, they were eager from the start, but once we were playing we didn’t perform, individuals didn’t perform and as a team, we didn’t perform.”
The Red Devils will slump to their lowest-ever Premier League points tally under the watch of Ten Hag as they can only reach 63 – a point less than the 2013-14 campaign when they finished seventh.
United have three games left in the league campaign with the next one against title contenders Arsenal at Old Trafford on Sunday. In the final two matchdays, they will play against Newcastle United and Brighton on May 16 and 19, respectively. However, they still have an opportunity to lift silverware before wrapping up the season as they find themselves in the FA Cup final, pitted against Manchester City.
