Man Utd boss Erik ten Hag put on the spot as Patrice Evra not buying ‘excuses’

Patrice Evra has called out Erik ten Hag for “making excuses” for his side’s poor performance against Newcastle on Saturday. Ten Hag insisted that fatigue played a part in United’s dismal display at St James’ Park suggesting a nip-and-tuck midweek Champions League fixture against Galatasary took the wind out of their sails.

But Evra believes that the desire they showed during Wednesday afternoon’s 2-1 against Chelsea was what was missing last time out.”I know you are protecting your players but we really feel against Newcastle, Newcastle play in the Champions League also against PSG,” Evra told Ten Hag when he joined the Amazon Prime booth after the Red Devils’ win at Old Trafford.

“So I think saying they were a little bit tired, I think is not an excuse and tonight. I’m sorry I know you may not comment about it but the players who were on the pitch, all of them were like dying for the badge and playing as a team.

“I think the star today was the team, it wasn’t one player even though McTominay was the man of the match today but I just saw the starting XI player, they were determined to win and try to forgive what happened at Newcastle.”

Ten Hag then replied: “Yeah of course, it plays a role but I can always give reasons and as I said, they are never excuses. So it doesn’t matter. But you’re talking about that performance every time again from Newcastle but we played in that week three games, two very good games.

“But then I know we played on Saturday, Newcastle played on Sunday, we played on Wednesday and they played on Tuesday and we came back from Istanbul, a journey, we have to go away so there are always reasons why but that is not an excuse to play like we did at Newcastle, definitely not. We can’t take those issues, we have to perform for our fans, every time we have to give our best because good is not good enough, we have to do better.”

Man Utd were in great form against Chelsea tonight as they moved within three points of a top-four spot. Scott McTominay opened up the scoring in the 21st minute as he latched onto a loose ball before rifling a powerful close-range shot past Robert Sanchez in the Chelsea goal mouth.

The Blues then drew level on the stroke of half-time courtesy of Cole Palmer before the marauding Scotsman struck once again with a headed goal on 69 minutes that proved to be the decider.