Manchester United's woes continued as they were thrashed 4-0 by Crystal Palace in their Premier League encounter on Monday (May 6). The loss has put more pressure on Erik Ten Hag to continue as the team manager for the next season. While there has been heavy criticism, the Dutchman stated that he 'will keep fighting' and 'find the energy' to prepare the team for the next game with nine points to play forthis season.
Following their big defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace, United are in the eighth spot with three league games in hand, at the brink of attainingseveral unwanted records.
The Red Devils currently have a club-record number of losses (13) in a Premier League season. Notably, they have already faced their most shots (618) in a single campaign. Thus, if they let in three more goals inthis term, it will set a new mark for their most conceded in a season.
After the loss, Ten Hag told SkySports, "I will keep fighting, I have prepared the team in the best way I can. It (the performance) was not good enough and I have to take the responsibility for that."
"But I will find the energy and prepare them for the next game. We have nine points to play for and we have to fight for those," he stated.
United had a tough time against Palacefrom the word go. Heading into the game with injury issues, the former champions were forced to play midfielder Casemiro at centre-back. This led to him being exposed on a number of occasions as Palace’s mobile front three pulled their visitors apart.
However, Ten Hag refused to put the blame on Casemiro and said, "You can’t put it on one player, it is a team performance. We did not adapt to the different situations. It’s clear, we didn’t act how we want to, it’s not good enough."
He added, "There are always reasons, everyone could see our backline today, where we had huge problems. But at the end of the day, we have to deal with these issues and we should have done better."
United will now turn tohome comforts as they will host league leaders Arsenal on Sunday (May 12).