Erik ten Hag ‘not concerned’ after Man Utd struggle in Europa League win over Omonia Nicosia

Erik ten Hag has said he is ‘not concerned’ by Manchester United’s profligacy in front of goal during their 1-0 win over Omonia Nicosia on Thursday night

Similar to last week’s meeting in Cyprus, United dominated the game on Thursday but couldn’t get the win wrapped up during the early stages, resulting in a nervous finish. In fact, it took until injury-time for the Red Devils to score at Old Trafford, with substitute Scott McTominay blasting an effort past Francis Uzoho in the away net.

United registered 34 shots in the Europa League fixture with Marcus Rashford producing 10, but still failing to find the back of the net, while Casemiro, Fred and Cristiano Ronaldo also went close. Yet Ten Hag was certainly focusing on the positives after the game and insisted he was pleased with the team’s overall performance.

“No,” he responded, when asked on BT Sport if he was worried about the number of chances his side spurned on Thursday. “I know how football works and we score already so many goals. In every game we score and I have the faith we will continue that. We have scoring players and I’m not concerned with this. I hope we saved the goals for next week.

“Football is about scoring goals and we created so many chances but we only [scored] one time and it was enough for the win. I’m happy with that,” Ten Hag added. “I have to pay the team a compliment [for] keeping patient, keep coming in the right positions, keep creating chances.

“They didn’t allow the opponent to come out so I think they did well. There’s only one thing football is about, you have to score. When you create so many chances against such a compact opponent, that is well done from the team. Of course I prefer to score more and to score earlier - it makes life easier.”