Erik ten Hag has defended Man Utd’s defence. (Image: Getty)
launched a passionate defence of his side’s… well… defence after the latest in a long line of chaotic nights in Europe that have become far too familiar. last-gasp header to salvage a 3-3 draw at on Thursday didn’t drift Ten Hag any further from the sack.
Football can be a complicated game, but its foundations are simple. Good teams tend to boast an attack that can score goals and a defence that can stop them.
Ten games into his third season as manager, United have neither. That’s in the , anyway.
The club’s European nights have served as some sort of fever dream. They’re entertaining for the neutral but unsustainable for United and their Dutch coach.
“We need to be better on the ball, keep switching,” Ten Hag told TNT Sports after the mayhem at the Estadio do Dragao.
“We have good players, a good plan. We have to defend better. We had three clean sheets not a long time ago so we can defend very good, but we have to go back to those habits.”
But can United ‘defend very good’? Data doesn’t lie often, if at all, and the data suggests otherwise.
You can first analyse European football alone – across United’s opening two Europa League games and last season’s abysmal Champions League experience.
Lisandro Martinez and Matthijs de Ligt aren’t gelling. (Image: Getty)
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The Red Devils have scored 12 goals in their last four European away games, in three of which they’ve led 2-0. Zero wins.
You can delve deeper into this torrid run of one win in 10 European matches. A 2-0 lead at home to Sevilla became 2-2. Two advantages over Galatasaray – 1-0 and 2-1 – somehow flipped into a 3-2 defeat. They were both on home turf.
The wider picture doesn’t make great reading, either. United have conceded 176 goals in 124 games since Ten Hag took charge in the summer of 2022.
His rate of 1.4 goals conceded per game is higher than any manager in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era, followed by (1.16).
Want to go a step further? We can. Since Ten Hag arrived at Old Trafford, no club has conceded three or more goals in a match more times than United’s 24.
They’ve conceded two or more goals in a match on 31 occasions since the start of last season – also a record among outfits.
Ten Hag has overseen 19 defeats in which three or more goals have been shipped. Solskjaer (14) is the only other post-Ferguson boss whose tally is double figures.
Four clean sheets in 10 games don’t match the description of ‘very good’. Nor does it cover up a tenure of defensive deficiencies that aren’t going away.