Manchester United legend Andy Cole believes that it is too early in the season for Erik Ten Hag to be bombarded with negativity about the results they achieved and has thrown his weight behind the coach.
Cole believes that Ten Hag has earned the patience of the fans with the silverware he has brought to Old Trafford.
United beat Southampton this weekend to bounce back from a couple of losses.
Too much doom and gloom at Manchester United
He feels that speculation about the manager’s position has been blown out of proportion.
“I don’t really entertain that nonsense. I really don’t,” Cole told Betfred.
“Everybody’s going to have an opinion and say what they have to say and want to say. Ultimately, Erik ten Hag’s in charge and he deserves to be in charge because winning two cups in two seasons isn’t doom and gloom. I understand that they’ve lost in a big game at home against Liverpool and it wasn’t a game that we lost many times when I was playing for Manchester United, but we’re only three games in.
“It’s not as if Manchester United have been terrible in all those three games. They beat Fulham and they were unlucky against Brighton. For me personally, it can’t be doom and gloom and we just need to let Erik get on with his job.”
Cole also felt that it was wrong for Casemiro to be singled out for criticism and abuse following his performance against Liverpool.
Manchester United need to win and lose as a team
Cole felt that individual errors shouldn’t be blamed for the team’s failure to get a result: “I’m not going to sit here and say that Casemiro was the reason why Manchester United lost to Liverpool on Sunday.
“Football is a team game and unfortunately every now and then, an individual makes a mistake, gets caught out and the opposition capitalise on it.
“You can’t just blame an individual for a defeat.
“I look at football completely different to the way the fans do because I’ve been involved in the game, but nine times out of ten when a player makes a mistake, you’re not necessarily going to be punished. Casemiro was punished just like Kobbie Mainoo was for the third goal, but that’s football.”
Man Utd target all around improvement not magic bullets
Cole doesn’t believe that Manuel Ugarte coming in will perform any miracles in terms of changing things for this Man Utd side.
“It’s difficult for me to speak about Ugarte because I’ve not seen him play too much. He hardly played for PSG last season in the Champions League, despite playing more frequently in Ligue 1, so it will be interesting to finally see what type of player he is. He sounds like a player that likes to win the ball and give it to whoever he needs to give it to, so I’m just looking forward to seeing him play, like everybody else is,” Cole added.
“We can’t expect him to come into the team and fix everything because he’s just one player in a team. They’ve all got to work at it. I don’t believe the start of the season has been as bad as everybody’s making out. They won against Fulham, they should have got a result against Brighton and yesterday was obviously disappointing, even more so that they’ve now got to wait two weeks to put things right.”
Harry Maguire unlucky
Cole further questioned whether starting Matthijs De Ligt ahead of Harry Maguire was the right call.
However, he felt that it might not have made a difference given the overall gulf in quality between Liverpool and Man Utd on the day.
“We can’t play the blame game. You win together and you lose together. Manchester United lost to a better team on Sunday and Liverpool punished them in areas that they needed to punish them in. Regarding De Ligt, it was a difficult game to come into and he wouldn’t have known what to expect.
“He would have been disappointed with the result on his home debut.
“You could also ask the question why did Harry Maguire not deserve to start against Liverpool? I’m not here to point the blame at anybody because Manchester United lost to a better team and that’s football.”
Can Ten Hag turn things around
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