UNITED BOSS ERIK TEN HAG STORMS OUT OF POST MATCH PRESS CONFERENCE FOLLOWING 2-2 DRAW AGAINST BOURNEMOUTH
Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag stormed out of his post-match press conference yesterday following United’s 2-2 draw against newcomers Bournemouth in what was a calamitous result for the Red Devils’ Champions League hopes next season.
Ten Hag was asked about the danger of being caught in seventh place during the final stages of the domestic season and the prospect of the club finishing below seventh for the first time in Premier League history, an idea that the 54-year-old manager didn’t appear eager to entertain.
Walking out, he said, “I do not comment [on] this question. That is not important at this moment.”
The United Stand’s Sam Cohen, however, reported early Sunday morning that the Dutch manager did not, in fact, walk out on reporters but rather United’s Press Officer had already ended the conference by that point.
The three-time Eredivisie winner backed his players during the press conference but subtly threw a dig at some of his younger players, citing their inexperience and lack of consistency, comments that many thought were responses to 19-year-old Alejandro Garnacho, who was subbed off at halftime for 21-year-old Amad Diallo.
“This team, the spirit is good, the resilience is good, so they showed some character… Players gave everything, their maximum but some of them are young, inexperienced and it’s difficult to do it game after game in the Premier League,” said ten Hag. “It’s difficult but they have to deal with it.”
Asked if Garnacho had a problem after coming off, ten Hag shook his head, saying, “No.”
Performances at United under Erik ten Hag have elicited some truly bizarre social media posts going back to Cristiano Ronaldo’s interview with Piers Morgan in 2022 and Sancho’s “scapegoat” Twitter response in September. Saturday was no different as the two aforementioned United players eventually ended up posting more cryptic messages on social media.
Argentine forward Garnacho and Ivorian talent Amad Diallo posted photos of themselves from the game and captioned them with ‘silenced’ emojis. The young Argentinian eventually took down the post and reposted it with a different emoji. Diallo, on the other hand, left his post up.
The Abidjan-born winger has rarely seen game time since his return from loan with championship side Sunderland and could have thought ten Hag’s comments about youth and player inexperience had something to do with him.
Young Argentine talent Garnacho also liked a couple of tweets that were written by United fan Mark Goldbridge in his defense against ten Hag’s subtle criticism of his performance on Saturday. United responded to Garnacho’s situation via Cohen, saying the Madrid-born forward had been ill all week and only trained on Friday, hence why he was subbed off at half-time.
Team photos posted on social media last week showed, however, that the young Argentinian was in team training at Carrington on Wednesday. Nothing was mentioned about Diallo.
Ten Hag also dropped Brazilian winger Antony for United’s bout against the Cherries amidst rumours that both player and manager had suffered a falling out. However, as per Sam Cohen, the €80 million pound winger had in fact sustained an injury and did not complete training on Friday, hence his lack of availability for selection for the game on Saturday.
The draw on Saturday, which United had to earn by twice coming from a goal down via a Bruno Fernandes brace now leaves the club seventh on the league table and 10 points adrift of the Champions League places, with only six games left in the season. United has faced the most shots in the club’s history (565) since the Premier League started recording ‘most shots faced’ as an official statistic in 2003/04 and are now on track to concede upwards of 650 shots on the season.
Manchester United fullback Diogo Dalot spoke about the conceded shots after the game on Saturday. “It’s been one of our concerns,” he said. “Maybe [we need to] try to be more compact as a team – don’t try to make the gap between defenders and midfield too big. Sometimes it is, and they counter on the counter-attack. It’s something we have to improve because it’s been nowhere near good enough for the level of this club.”
Ten Hag again called for patience from the fans, reiterating that his side is currently facing injury problems. “It [patience] is up to them [the fans],” he said. “But it is the truth. At this moment, with all the problems we have, we play to our [current] levels. We can play very good and to our [highest] levels when everyone is on top form but we have to do it for the whole 90 minutes.”
-Maher Abucheri
Twitter: @pabloikonyero
Photo: Кирилл Венедиктов. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.