Erik ten Hag mentioned an absence of self perception is responsible for Manchester United‘s opening day defeat to Brighton and added that his gamers are struggling to shake off the hangover from final season.
Ten Hag’s first aggressive recreation as United boss led to a 2-1 defeat at Previous Trafford because the Dutchman’s reign received off to the worst potential begin.
Pascal Gross scored twice to place Brighton 2-0 up at half-time, and Ten Hag mentioned the arrogance of his group had disintegrated after a optimistic begin.
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“I believe it was an excellent begin after which after we dropped down a stage in perception and we made errors and the opponent punished us,” Ten Hag mentioned in a information convention after the sport.
“I can perceive that [a lack of belief] after final yr but it surely’s not needed. They’re good gamers; self perception is from your self.
“I do know it might occur, however I believe we should always have carried out higher, that is clear, but in addition it won’t come in a single day. In the present day we had a worse interval in the course of the first half and now we have to study from that. That is additionally clear.”
Ten Hag began the sport with new signing Christian Eriksen employed as a false No. 9 with Cristiano Ronaldo on the bench.
Ronaldo regarded set to start out after an harm dominated out Anthony Martial, however afterward Ten Hag defended his resolution to bench the 37-year-old.
“If there was an accessible striker, I might have performed him,” Ten Hag mentioned. “Cristiano Ronaldo is now possibly for 10 days in group coaching and too brief for 90 minutes, so that’s the reason we did not begin him. We now have two strikers [Martial and Ronaldo], possibly a 3rd one, [Marcus] Rashford.
“We thought of him as a striker however he had a very good season on the left aspect and he had two actually good possibilities, however the typical 9 wasn’t accessible at the moment.”
