'Not good enough' - Erik ten Hag delivers brutal verdict on Manchester United pre-season defeat
Man Utd lost 1-0 to Rosenborg in their first pre-season friendly fixture on Monday.
Erik ten Hag slammed his Manchester United players after they fell to a 1-0 defeat to Rosenborg in their opening match of pre-season.
United used 21 different players in what was largely a fitness building exercise on Monday night, but the Dutch manager didn't want to make any excuses for a disappointing performance.
Rosenborg, who are 15 matches into their campaign, were by far the fitter side and their extra match sharpness was apparent throughout the encounter. United started the match with their more experienced names such as Marcus Rashford and Mason Mount but the side they used in the second-half consisted entirely of academy products.
It took until the final 20 seconds of the match when Rosenborg finally find a way past Radek Vitek through Noah Helm, but after the game Ten Hag had little sympathy for his side.
“The result is not secondary,” he told MUTV. “Of course, we play pre-season, but Manchester United as a standard, we win games. Definitely don’t lose games. If you can’t win games, don’t lose games, like we did, last second of the game. The performance is more important and the performance was below standard.”
He added: “This is not the standard for top football. Top football you have to achieve much higher standards. It starts with the individual, make sure you’re fit, I know we can’t be match fit at this moment. You need those games. We play against an opponent they are in the league, they have a much higher fitness level. But still, we are Man United, we should perform better.”