Ferdinand claims Ten Hag could’ve ended Man Utd ‘suffering’ against Arsenal with one decision

Joe Williams
Man Utd legend Rio Ferdinand speaks

Rio Ferdinand thinks Erik ten Hag should’ve brought on Alejandro Garnacho earlier than he did as Man Utd lost 3-2 to Arsenal on Sunday.

The Red Devils lost in injury time with Eddie Nketiah scoring his second goal of the game to give the Gunners a crucial three points and move them 11 points clear of fourth-placed Man Utd.

Arsenal came from a goal down to lead 2-1 after Marcus Rashford’s early opener before Lisandro Martinez’s headed goal brought the scores level with just over half an hour to play.

And Ferdinand reckons that Man Utd boss Ten Hag should’ve made the decision to bring Garnacho off the bench shortly after they made it 2-2 in order to “give Arsenal something to think about”.

Ferdinand told his Vibe with Five YouTube channel: “I will say, if I was being picky with United, I thought maybe they should have brought on someone like Garnacho with 15 or 20 minutes to go just to give Arsenal something to think about.

“They were so on us. They were all over us because they knew there was nothing threatening in behind late on.

“Marcus by that point was probably a little bit shot in terms of energy, Wout Weghorst is never going to run away from anybody and Bruno Fernandes was playing out on the right, more of a midfielder without legs.

“Garnacho I thought would have been a great substitute. With hindsight it’s easy to say all this, but they were the better team.

“When it went 2-2, they were the team that said, ‘No! We want to win this! We want to take all three points!’

“I thought the Fred substitution was obvious, but I also thought a double substitution then with maybe someone like Garnacho to give us a threat would have been a little bit of a punchy one to say, “We’re here to take the three points as well, you’re not just going to come onto us, we’re not going to just sit here and suffer!”

“But we were. We were sitting there and suffering. But at the same time, we have to say Manchester United have come a long way. Arsenal are further along in their development under this manager, they’ve had him for longer.”

Speaking after the match, Ten Hag told his Man Utd players that they need to “change” their mentality if they are to challenge for major honours.

Ten Hag said: “Maybe that will come in the next couple of hours, that we will realise we are in a good position, realise we are in a good development and a good process,.

“But in this moment I am annoyed and I also told the players: ‘If you want to win trophies, titles you have to change our mentality, because it’s not possible that you are in a top game making three such big mistakes where you concede’.

“Then especially the last goal, you have to feel the game. At that point, a point was the maximum. Then you have to take the point and you can’t give such a goal away like we did. And on top level, you can’t win trophies.

“It was like a pack of cards with the goals we concede. Two starting with a corner and then obviously we make mistakes, we didn’t show the discipline in the rules we have there. Then you concede goals.”

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