Ten Hag calls for improvement from Man Utd before Villa showdown

The Red Devils are looking to bounce back after a tough defeat to Tottenham in the Premier League and a hard-fought 3-3 draw with FC Porto in the Europa League.

As they prepare to take on Aston Villa on Sunday, Ten Hag told reporters: “I’m not thinking about such (external) issues because it’s not a topic. We are in there together, the ownership, the leadership team, the staff I appointed, the new staff.  

“We bought again new, young players and we have to integrate (them). Like (Manuel) Ugarte, the no.6 position was absolutely one of the positions we wanted to sign this season but he needs time to integrate. You know in top football, you don’t get time, you have to perform immediately but that’s not always realistic. He has to get used to our game model, to his team-mates, to the intensity of the Premier League. So it needs time. So we have more positions where we need time.  

“I’m very pleased with the return of Rasmus Hojlund. I think he had a good return but we couldn’t play him in the first two months of the season. Hopefully, he is now fit and he keeps improving in his fitness levels. He also has to be consistently fit this season and that will help us. So there are more areas where we will improve, definitely, and then this team can grow and improve and then we’ll see where we are at the end of the season.” 

On their lack of discipline in recent games, he added: “The red card was overturned for Bruno (Fernandes) so it was acknowledged it was a mistake on Sunday (against Tottenham).  

“This was very unlucky (in Porto) and he gave everything to make a goal. He was in the right moment, in the right spot but he came on his blind side. So I wouldn’t address this as indiscipline. The other part, yeah, we have to improve, that is for sure but also, you can say we were very disciplined and for the first 25 minutes in positioning.  

“We created chances, at the right moment, we speeded up the game so it was not just indiscipline. Definitely, we can improve and we have to improve if we want to make it a success. We can only achieve success like the last two seasons, winning trophies, when we improve, so definitely we will work on this.”