Erik ten Hag felt it was a collective failure that led to Manchester United losing 4-0 to Brentford and stressed the need to strengthen the squad.
David de Gea will not want to see the replay after allowing Josh Dasilva’s long-range effort into the net after 10 minutes. Mathias Jensen doubled the Bees lead on 18 minutes before Ben Mee’s header made it 3-0. Incredibly, Bryan Mbeumo added a fourth with 10 minutes of the first period still remaining.
It left the United fans stunned while Brentford’s faithful could hardly believe what they were witnessing. The visitors managed to stop the bleeding during the second 45 minutes but it was another disastrous afternoon.
Ten Hag struggled to find the right words to say after the drubbing. But he felt that the players need to stand up and be counted after an abject display.
“It is my responsibility to give an explanation,” he told BBC Sport. “It is clear the performance was really poor. When you make mistakes like this, you can’t win the game.
“It is about taking responsibility on the pitch, you cannot make such mistakes at our level. We had to deal with the disappointment and bring the belief on the pitch.
“You have to be ready for a game and be ready for the battle as individuals and as a team. We have to push each other and bring the demands in because it is not good.”
And the Dutchman stressed that, while it is obvious he needs reinforcements, the stars he has must raise their level.
“It is clear we need players but I don’t want to think about that in this moment,” he added. “The good players we had should have been better.
“I hoped for a better start, but still I have to believe because I have seen good things but the two games from now are disappointing.
Ten Hag apologises to United fans
The Sunday papers will not make great reading for Manchester United supporters, with their team rock bottom of the standings. And Ten Hag feels they deserved better after making the long trek south.
“I feel really sorry for the fans,” he said on Sky Sports. “They did everything to support us but we let them down.”
The former Ajax chief wants to see a change in mindset and refused to absolve himself from blame.
“What I asked them to do is play with belief and take responsibility for the performance. We have to work on that,” he continued. “The manager is responsible as well. He has the main responsibility and I’ll take that and work on that.”
