Revealed: Ten Hag goes BERSERK at Man Utd flops after Liverpool thrashing

Suraj Radia

• Updated: 7 Mar 2023 16:09 GMT
• 2 min read

Erik ten Hag took unique action to make his Manchester United players bounce back from their humiliating 7-0 loss to Liverpool by making them sit in silence and listen to their rivals celebrations.

United suffered their biggest defeat in nearly 100 years to the hands of Jurgen Klopp’s side and Ten Hag wanted his players to use the noise of the Liverpool players and Anfield crowd as motivation for future performances.

The players arrived at the club’s training ground at 9am on Monday, less than 15 hours after the result, for a debrief, with Ten Hag already having been there since the early morning.

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The United boss laid into his players for their lack of professionalism and commitment and told them they were lucky to be on the coach back to Manchester instead of travelling home on public transport alongside angry fans.

Ten Hag also warned that a repeat of their attitude against Liverpool would see them banished to the under-21s, such was his emphasis on keeping a strong level of standards and mentality at the club.

However, while Ten Hag did not hide his fury in order to garner a reaction from his players, the Dutchman was more focused on ensuring United recovered from the performance ahead of their Europa League tie against Real Betis on Thursday.

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United’s stars faced a similar inquest after suffering back-to-back defeats in their opening two games of the season, when Ten Hag forced his players to come in on their day off for extra running after a dismal showing in a 4-0 loss to Brentford.

The 99.01km covered by the players at Anfield was the lowest distance ran since the 95.6km at Brentford, albeit United have been inundated with games every three days since their return from the World Cup break.

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Ten Hag was aware of the psychological impact of a defeat in the context of the team’s season so far and the Liverpool game was just United’s fifth loss in 40 games since Brentford.

However, Ten Hag was also eager to avoid any talk of overachieving despite speaking in their Whatsapp chat of potentially overtaking Manchester City and Arsenal in the race for the title, making the Liverpool game an even bigger shock to the system.