Manchester United were eliminated from the Europa League last night after suffering a 3-0 defeat to Sevilla in Spain. The English club had played out a draw with Sevilla during the first leg at Old Trafford and were considered the favourite to win this season’s UEFA Europa League under the guidance of Erik ten Hag, but were denied the opportunity after De Gea and Harry Maguire blunders cost the team the defeat.
Erik ten Hag has protected De Gea when asked about his performance during his post match conference, he said” He’s one of the most clean sheet player in the Premier League.
See what Erik had to say in his interviews with the official broadcasters, including MUTV, BT Sport, beIN Sports and Canal+…
“A disappointing performance. It was not good enough. We have to do better. No composure on the ball and we made the wrong decisions to quickly concede the goal and we never came into the game. We changed [things] but, straight after half-time, [we conceded] another goal which was avoidable. It can’t happen at our level.”
INDIVIDUAL ERRORS
“It’s always about the team performance. Win together, lose together. We deal with the setback and have to deal with that. It is clear when we make these mistakes, it is difficult to win a football game. We have to be better, that is the demand. I think we lost a bit of our coolness in the build-up, they went high pressure, we didn’t really do well with that, I think we made more mistakes than we normally do. I think that the whole team today, we couldn’t catch up on the mistakes that team-mates made. I think every football player makes mistakes in the game, of course, mistakes like this, they punish us straight away on this level, so of course, we had to take that away. In the end, I think it’s how you bounce back from the mistakes, and I think today, we weren’t strong enough to bounce back from the mistakes we gave them.”
MISSED CHANCE
“We had a big chance with Aaron Wan-Bissaka [with a shot saved by Yassine Bounou in the first half]. It was a big chance to come back but we didn’t bounce back in this game. Of course, I’m very disappointed. I expect much more. The fans expect much more and they are right.”
DID THE ATMOSPHERE PLAY A PART?
“I don’t think it’s anything with that, I think take away anywhere where we play, if we give away the goals we do today, I think we’ll lose. So that’s nothing to do with the atmosphere. I just think our own game wasn’t strong enough. [Did the crowd and Sevilla surprise you?] No, absolutely not. We were prepared for their intensity. We didn’t take the right decisions on the pitch.”
DEFENDING DE GEA
“He’s the one with the most clean sheets in the Premier League, so that shows he’s a very capable goalkeeper.”
WERE THERE ANY INJURIES?
“It’s difficult, at this moment, we have to wait. We have to see tomorrow and then we return to England and then we can make up the bill from today, what happened, and then, yeah, we can look forward to the game on Sunday [against Brighton & Hove Albion in the Emirates FA Cup semi-final] and then we will see which team we can pick.”
NOT GOOD ENOUGH
“I think they [the players] showed in the past they can [perform], but tonight we weren’t good enough. It was obvious, it was clear. We didn’t match the standards that you can expect from a team like Manchester United. We have to be better. Everyone can expect higher standards from Manchester United.”
