Erik ten Hag has stated that Bruno Fernandes’s willingness to play through a foot injury at Tottenham on Thursday should be an example to the rest of his Manchester United players.
Fernandes sustained the problem early in Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final victory over Brighton but played on until the 101st minute. He then wore a protective boot as a precaution in his determination to be available to face Spurs.
Ten Hag, speaking after the 2-2 draw, praised the stand-in captain’s attitude. “It was tough [for him],” the manager said. “A big compliment to Bruno, he absolutely did not wish to miss this game – and every game. I think he is the example, that you have to suffer, have to decide if you wish to sacrifice, if you want to play or don’t play, if at this level you want to achieve something.
“So once again he showed there what a great captain he is, how he has taken responsibility; even if he is not 100% fit he did the job. He was important in this game as well, and hopefully others in the team can see him as an inspiration and do the same.”
Alejandro Garnacho, who on Friday signed a contract extension to 2028, is back in light training after a foot injury that has kept the teenager out since 12 March. Ten Hag said it was not clear when the Argentinian winger would return to team training and that he would not release him for the Under-20 World Cup, which is being held in his home country from 20 May to 11 June.
Jadon Sancho, who has endured uneven form this term, scored United’s opener at Spurs but was taken off at half-time. When explaining why, Ten Hag criticised the forward. “He scored a great goal [and] I think he had to score another one,” he said. “He had quite a good performance.
“But also we lost control and also in the pressing before half-time, the defensive organisation on the left side wasn’t great cooperation. So I hoped to improve that.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Erik ten Hag insisted that Manchester United should have scored more goals after a 2-2 draw in their Europa League play off first leg against Barcelona at the Camp Nou.
The Dutchman also complained that Barcelona had escaped a gamechanging clear red card and a penalty after Jules Koundé bundled over Marcus Rashford near the edge of the area at 2-1 to the visitors, suggesting that the atmosphere might have influenced the referee, Maurizio Mariani.
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“It was 2-1, a clear foul on Marcus Rashford and a penalty,” Ten Hag said. “If it’s in the box or just outside the box, it’s definitely a red card. I asked the referee: why? He said it was outside the box and it was no foul. The referee and the linesman were in a good position and if not there is the VAR. It’s not good. It’s a really bad decision. Maybe they were impressed by the pressure that Barcelona made but they can’t be at the highest level.”
Barcelona also had a penalty appeal when the ball appeared to hit Fred on the arm, with coach Xavi Hernández confronting the referee at full time. “It’s a penalty the size of a cathedral; how are you going to feel?” Xavi said. “I don’t know what they have to do to blow a penalty for handball. They looked at it as well and said no. It seems incredible to me, incredible.”
When that was put to Ten Hag and it was suggested that the two decisions evened each other out, he replied: “You can’t see it this way. The Rashford one is at 2-1 and the momentum of the game is totally different. I didn’t see the handball, so maybe it can be a mistake. Maybe it can be two mistakes. But you can’t equalise the two because of the moment in the game, in the whole round. That was an important decision where he was wrong.
“In a game when you create five or seven chances you have to finish more,” the United coach added. “We should have on this game. We need to be more clinical, finish our chances. In such a game we created many chances and there is a disappointment that we did not finish them.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Barcelona. Manchester United. A packed Camp Nou. A Thursday night. Oh, that. Erik ten Hag described this Europa League playoff as the clubs’ “reality” right now but insisted that they are on their way back to a better place, with both teams needing a “reset” and this meeting now offering a measure of their recent revival. The United manager has also admitted that he does not know why he was unable to convince Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong to move to Old Trafford in the summer.
“It’s good [to meet],” the United manager said. “We both have the ambition to be in the Champions League and not just be there but really [have an] impact on the competition – get out the group, reach the semi-finals, the final, even win it. But the reality is that we are here. That tells you that both clubs need a reset. We are both going in the right direction and it is exciting to face each other because it will help us. You know where you are. It is a good test and from this test we can get better.”
According to Luke Shaw, United were “nowhere near where we should have been” at the start of the season but they have now won 12 and lost just one of their last 15 games. Barcelona are also rebuilding and have won 14 and drawn one in the same period. This game has been seen in Catalonia as a test of how good Barcelona really are and Shaw, who said he did not yet know if he might play at centre-back, insisted the same was true for United.
“We have learnt and grown, and that is showing in our performances,” he said. “This is a big game and it will show us where we are.”
They have done so without their prime target in the summer, after De Jong resisted United’s overtures – and Barcelona’s attempts to make him leave. He has since become a fundamental to the improvement at the Camp Nou. Asked why he was unable to convince his countryman to join him, Ten Hag smiled and replied: “I don’t know.”
He said: “Frenkie de Jong is an incredible player and he would strengthen any club in the world. He has a quality that means that any team would be better with him. He is a fantastic player, he can play out from the back, he always has time. It was a pleasure to work with him [at Ajax].”
Though De Jong could not be persuaded, Casemiro could, and Shaw said that the Brazilian gives the defence a sense of security that has been central to their improvement.
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“It has been quite obvious how important he is to us [by what happens] when he doesn’t play,” he said. “For us defenders, it gives us the feeling that there is security: his positioning, where he always is, he loves to win the ball and tackle. We say to him that he likes to give the ball away just so he can go and win it back again. He is extremely important and I am happy to have him back because he has been a big miss for us.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
When picking over the Marcus Rashford renaissance, surely the feelgood story of the season, one that no football fan resents irrespective of allegiance, it is easy to linger on the biggest moments. The decisive goals for a resurgent Manchester United in the Premier League against Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City. The comeback strike for England at the World Cup against Iran with virtually his first touch at international level since the penalty miss in the Euro 2020 final. The two-goal salvo against Wales in the next tie, including the banging free-kick.
Rashford’s managers though, for club and country, are drawn to something else, a lower-profile flicker but one that captures his essence – the drive and clarity that has underpinned his journey from the time when United first scouted him as a six-year-old. It was the towering header against West Ham at the end of October that gave United a 1-0 home win. Christian Eriksen had stood up the cross and, when Rashford threw himself at it, Erik ten Hag could feel a glow of satisfaction.
Marcus Rashford scores against West Ham with a towering header, the goal that captures the essence of his journey at United. Photograph: David Davies/PA
The United manager had identified heading as an area Rashford could improve on and asked his assistant coach, Benni McCarthy, to work on it with him. “Marcus is a truly dedicated trainer and after every session he always wants to finish a series of balls on goal,” Ten Hag told Voetbal International in December. “Right foot, left foot. From different angles, from crosses. And then with those headers.”
Rashford had scored with one in United’s previous game against Sheriff in the Europa League. Now this. “The higher you go, the more it’s about the details,” Ten Hag said. “It was a great moment against West Ham.”
Gareth Southgate agreed. “I’ve seen Marcus arrive at the far post with a header, which is quite staggering,” the England manager said on the day he recalled him for his World Cup squad. Perhaps, West Ham was the point that sealed the deal. “They are the things that we’ve talked about over the years,” Southgate said. “He’s looking more like the player we’ve seen.”
Rashford’s commitment has never been in doubt. Even during his lost season last time out, the United interim manager, Ralf Rangnick, always felt he trained well. But something was blocked and there came to be the sense that the harder Rashford tried, the worse things got for him. When he crossed the white line for games, it was as if all the old certainties deserted him. Rangnick considered him an enigma. He could not explain what was happening.
Rashford told Rangnick he wanted to play off the left rather than the right but it was not one specific factor that made everything come off the rails, rather a damaging accumulation of them.
Rashford’s season had been framed by his final act of the previous one – the missed penalty in the Euro 2020 final shootout defeat against Italy and the trauma of the fallout, which was marked by racist abuse on social media. There was the shoulder surgery that meant he did not return until mid-October and by then United were in crisis, enduring the dog days of Ole Gunnar Solskjær, the Old Trafford humiliations against Liverpool and Manchester City.
Rangnick took over in early December after the brief Michael Carrick interlude but the rot was deep, United set for the worst season of their Premier League history; condemnation as the club’s worst team since the late 1980s.
When United suspended Mason Greenwood after rape allegations on 30 January, Rangnick demanded the club sign a new forward before the winter window closed only to be denied; a player in that area was not a part of the long-term plan at that point, he was told. Rangnick went crackers at the board. What the episode also tells us is that he did not see Rashford as any kind of solution.
The bond between Erik ten Hag and Marcus Rashford has grown stronger after the forward’s 16 goals in 27 games for United. Photograph: Matthew Ashton/AMA/Getty Images
Then there was Cristiano Ronaldo, who Rashford has described as one of his idols. “To have the opportunity to play with him is unbelievable, it’s something I can keep with me forever,” he said during the World Cup, after Ronaldo’s United contract had been terminated.
But Ronaldo’s presence last season was not always a positive for Rashford; he would sometimes have a go at him if Rashford did not get the ball to him. Rangnick felt United had to play two games – one against the opposition, the other to keep Ronaldo happy – and Rashford could be guilty of looking for impossible passes to him. The situation sapped at Rashford’s fragile confidence and the low points piled up.
Rashford heard howls of frustration from the Old Trafford crowd (previously unthinkable) but some of his performances were difficult to watch. Atlético Madrid at home, anyone? That was on 15 March and two days later Southgate named his England squad for the friendlies against Switzerland and Ivory Coast.
Everyone could see Rashford did not merit inclusion but those around him hoped Southgate could do him a favour, give him a needed boost by calling him up and sparking something. They felt Rashford would benefit from the secure environment Southgate has created with England and it probably said a lot by inference about the one in which the player was labouring at United.
Southgate omitted him and did so while making the point that Rashford had pulled out of six of the previous eight squads. Rashford was in and out of the United team. He was reportedly considering his future at the club. This was yet another setback.
The dressing room at United was fractured. There was no team spirit, no fighting for each other, no mental toughness. In his Voetbal International interview, Ten Hag described the attitude of the squad he inherited as “blase” while he remembered an episode from his second game – the 4-0 drubbing at Brentford last August.
“Beforehand, I saw one of our players shake his head and say with a sigh: ‘It is much too hot to play football,’” Ten Hag said. “I thought: ‘What is this? The opponent also suffers from it. You have to pull yourself together. You must have hardness.’ That was what was missing – that ambition. It’s purely about mentality. Brentford ran eight miles more than we did that afternoon.”
Rashford used a rare full pre-season to enter beast mode, working out from early June with a personal coach. He posted a picture on Monday – in the wake of his derby winner against City – training in only his shorts, socks and boots. The caption? “Summer ’22.” But the more important reset came on a psychological level, with Rashford admitting in October that mental health problems had been a part of it last season.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s presence last season was not always a positive for Marcus Rashford. Photograph: Rui Vieira/AP
“It’s a complete different energy around the club and the training ground and that puts me in a better headspace,” he said. “I was struggling at times with more mental things. That’s the biggest difference from last season. Too often, I wasn’t in the right headspace for games. I wasn’t surprised by some of the stuff that was happening.”
Rashford has celebrated his most recent goals by pointing at his temple. He has looked freer this season, happier; the hard graft at Carrington once again transferring to matchday. Maybe, the engagement to his long-term girlfriend, Lucia Loi, after the end of last season has added to the serenity. The goals are back (it is 16 in 27 games for United); and so are the jet-heeled bursts past opponents, the silky skills.
When Rashford overslept and missed the pre-match meeting before Wolves on New Year’s Eve – an uncharacteristic lapse – Ten Hag dropped him but he came off the bench to score the winner. When he took his first penalty since the Italy final against Everton in the FA Cup this month, he scored.
And so to Arsenal on Sunday afternoon, against whom it all started for Rashford. In February 2016, Louis van Gaal gave him his league debut against them as an 18-year-old and watched him score twice in a 3-2 win. Now, as then, Rashford can sense possibility.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
