Erik Ten Hag: ‘When your front players are not scoring, it goes through the whole team’

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Coach Erik Ten Hag was unhappy that Manchester United did not beat Tottenham, but was pleased with the bond between two of his players, Marcus Rashford and Hojlund. He said later that when front players fail to score, it affects a whole team badly.

The Premier League coach became a big preacher of team mindedness last year following a series of big losses and failures.

However, in their first Premier League match for the year 2024, Rasmus Hojlund and Marcus Rashford displayed something Ten Hag would like the rest of the team to keep practicing: working together.

Rashford helped Hojlund score the first goal for United, before receiving help from elsewhere to score his.

Ten Hag was happy that his front men are starting to make impact.

‘That counts for every team. When your front players are not scoring, it goes through the whole team.

‘It makes everyone insecure, starting with the front players, because they are of course eager when they’re not scoring and play with less confidence.

‘But also defending as they know every goal they concede is then a problem.

‘So when you can put out Garnacho, Hojlund and Rashford, and then Bruno Fernandes and Christian Eriksen behind, it must be a threat.’

He went on to say he wished the team would retain the form an attitude they showed against Tottenham.

‘I hope they keep going with this progress. You see they are coming up with routines – that is what you need.

‘You need it everywhere but especially in the front line, where there are tight areas and quick decisions have to be made. In a split second you need the right decisions, so you need that intuition.’

United has no Premier League match till February 1.