Erik ten Hag lamented the decision-making of the Manchester United players after their extraordinary 4-3 defeat to Chelsea.
United conceded goals in the 100th and 101st minute to Cole Palmer, who completed a remarkable hat-trick to inflict a 12th Premier League defeat on Ten Hag’s side this season.
On Saturday, Brentford secured a 99th-minute equalizer against United, while Chelsea became the third domestic team this season to secure victory against them with an added-time goal, following Arsenal and Fulham.
Diogo Dalot clumsily conceded a penalty, which Palmer converted to level the score at 3-3. Following the restart, Dalot initiated a desperate raid, which Chelsea counter-attacked from. Palmer, left unmarked, received the ball from a corner and scored a deflected winner past Andre Onana.
“Of course, that frustrates me the most,” Ten Hag said on the stoppage-time goals. “We started the game poor, making individual errors.
“But by that moment already I had the feeling we are dominating the game and we fought ourselves back into the game. We make ourselves in a winning position by very good football, sometimes brilliant football, scoring great goals.
“And then in stoppage time we didn’t manage it, we didn’t bring the win over the line and of course, that’s frustrating. I don’t know what it is but what it is that you have to do your job and they know their jobs and then you have to make the right decisions.
“And we didn’t make the right decisions, we didn’t react quick enough to avoid this situation.
“I said today to the players, on decision-making, we have to make better decisions, it’s our strength. You saw again how we score from counters – we can be such a massive threat. And we have seen today an example with tempo, how we can beat our opponents, where we are unstoppable.
“But we have to read when to keep the ball, especially when you are winning. Keep the ball, pass and move and switch the play instead of giving the ball away or going only into long balls. Bring the ball into the opponent’s half, keep passing, discourage the opponent.
“But then if you have to defend you have to do it proper and we made the wrong decisions. And on individual errors and that’s very frustrating if you’re playing a good game.”