Erik ten Hag gives surprising verdict after Man Utd 1-2 Fulham & disagrees with Marco Silva

Erik ten Hag praised his players’ character despite Manchester United falling to a 2-1 defeat to Fulham on Saturday.

It was a game where United were second best for long spells and allowed Fulham to register 17 shots. The Red Devils failed to register an effort in the first 25 minutes of each half at Old Trafford, and, excluding a flurry of chances late on, were ineffective going forward.

Harry Maguire’s 89th-minute equaliser set United up for another dramatic finish, but it was the visitors, not the Red Devils who managed to grab the decisive goal. Alex Iwobi swept the ball in at the back post to grab all three points and hand Fulham a first Old Trafford win since 2003.

But speaking after the game, Ten Hag said he felt his team deserved ‘credit’ and should have taken all three points. “We have gone lately very good, now we have some setbacks,” opined the Dutchman. 

“Today we could have won this game, even we should have won this game as the team showed great character. We had two slow starts in both halves, definitely. It was a big loss to lose Casemiro, we lost some stability in the team and concede a goal that is very avoidable and then fought back in the game.

“I have to credit the team - they showed great character. Then we went for the win but by the end we let them slip away.”

It's certainly not a view Marco Silva shared in his post-match assessment. "It is clear in my opinion the better team on the pitch won the game," said the ex-Everton boss.

"We are the team that created the most chances, that played better and tried to win most of the moments of the game. They had two or three very good moments as well but the way we started the second half, the first 30 minutes, the way we controlled the game against Man United at Old Trafford, that is not easy to do."

The result leaves United eight points behind the Champions League places after Aston Villa beat Nottingham Forest 4-2 on Saturday. But Ten Hag said his side are still capable of overturning that gap and securing a top-four finish.

“So I am not that opportune - after one defeat you have to see the bigger picture and the bigger picture looks very good,” he claimed. “We have to catch up in certain positions and get the injuries back, then we will be more in balance and also strengthen the squad in the transfer windows.

“You see there are many good players coming up and real high potential players, they will be getting better so definitely we are going in the right direction. So when we have the players available, we have a very good team.”