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Erik Ten Hag reflects on Newcastle United – We broke them but didn’t kill them

1 year ago
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Erik Ten Hag watched on as the best defence in the Premier League denied his side the win.

The previous six Premier League games had seen Man Utd win five and the other was a predictable hammering by Man City.

So every reason perhaps for Erik Ten Hag to believe his side could get back to winning ways.

However, this is a very different Newcastle United to the one that Steve Bruce served up for slaughter early last season, that 4-1 hammering the day that Ronaldo made his second Man Utd debut.

Ronaldo reduced on Sunday to embarrassingly trying to claim a goal when stealing the ball away as Nick Pope was waiting to take a free-kick, that pretty much the extent of his contribution.

Although some of the media amazingly sympathetic to the bizarre idea that this Ronaldo ‘goal’ should have stood, no surprise to see Erik Ten Hag also going along with this distorted reality when asked about that ‘goal disallowed and the 37 year old rightly booked instead…

“I don’t have a comment, everyone has seen it.

“You can try [asking] but everyone has seen the game.

“Everyone has seen the game and it is your job to judge the performance from the team and from the referees. Not me, I will not do it.”

Erik Ten Hag on the overall performance:

“We are disappointed we didn’t win as the performance was good.

“A clean sheet, we pressed well from the front to the back and we controlled it, I think. I thought we were good on the ball in stages, especially the second half. We were a little bit erratic in the first half.

“You see a physical team as Newcastle, we matched them, at least. In the end, we could have won and we deserved to win.

“It’s a big compliment to the team that we could deserve this with a physical performance against maybe the best physical team in the league. When you can deliver this, you keep going.”

Pressing

“All details, the pressing was even better in the second half and, especially on the ball, we were better and more composed.

“We beat them in the midfield and we created chances. They gave everything they had, individually and team-wise and deserved winning because we created the chances.

“We missed two huge chances – we could, and should, have scored the winning goal. It was a good run by Rashy for Fred and the last one was a good cross by Casemiro and Rashy had to score.”

Getting phsyical

“In the end, it was the physical and then the mentality.

“How we kept going. We gave them cramp because we made them run when we were on the ball, because our pressing was good.

“In the end, we broke them but didn’t kill them by not scoring.

“So I’m pleased with the performance but disappointed by the result.”

I think that the reality of the game is summed up by only two efforts on target at each end, neither keeper really making a serious save.

Joelinton could and should have scored when heading against bar, then post with the rebound. Whilst Rashford put a header wide in the final seconds he should have scored with.

The key incident though which Erik Ten Hag ‘forgot’ to mention, when on 10 minutes Varane gave away the most clearest of penalties when taking out Callum Wilson, yet astonishingly the referee didn’t give it and even worse, VAR didn’t intervene. Although there again, Wilson wasn’t wearing a red shirt…

Stats from BBC Sport:

Manchester United 0 Newcastle United 0 – Sunday 16 October 2pm

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Man U:

(Half-time stats in brackets)

Possession was Man U 63% (62%) Newcastle 37% (38%)

Total shots were Man U 15 (6) Newcastle 9 (7)

Shots on target were Man U 2 (1) Newcastle 2 (2)

Corners were Man U 4 (3) Newcastle 4 (3)

Referee: Craig Pawson

Newcastle United:

Pope, Trippier, Schar (Lascelles 90+1), Botman, Burn (Targett 78), Longstaff, Bruno (Willock 78), Joelinton, Murphy (Fraser 59), Almiron, Wilson (Wood 78)

Unused Subs:

Karius, Shelvey, Lewis, Anderson

(BBC Sport anti Newcastle United bias and pro Manchester United is laughable – Read HERE)

(Manchester United 0 Newcastle United 0 – The instant NUFC fan / writer reaction – Read HERE)

(Manchester United 0 Newcastle United 0 – The three big points that I’m taking from the match – Read HERE)

(Manchester United 0 Newcastle United 0 – A great point but Joelinton holding his head (twice!) and penalty on Wilson? – Read HERE)

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