Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag believes Aston Villa’s second goal could have been stopped

Manchester United’s unbeaten streak of nine-game was put to a halt by a resurgent Aston Villa with manager Unai Emery getting his first win with his new club.

The new manager bounce was already lurking over the Villa team and started the game in brilliant fashion and were rewarded deservedly by scoring two goals in the first fifteen minutes of the game.

An impressive goal from Leon Bailey was followed by a sumptuous free-kick from Lucas Digne for the second goal and United manager Erik ten Hag while speaking to Manchester Evening News believes that the second goal could have been stopped had the wall been not too far away from the goalscorer.

“I think the free-kick is stoppable because the wall is too far. Okay, a small detail but details make the difference in top football. It tells everything from us because we were not fresh.”

Aston Villa worked harder, ran more and were more creative on the ball throughout the game and there can be no hard feelings about the result, except how a win here would have helped our top four chances with Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur both dropping points.

The performance was reminiscent of the issues present at the club since some time where there is unpredictability attached to the squad and no one is quite sure of what kind of team will show up.

After a difficult run of fixtures which involved facing all the ‘Big 6’ teams where the team did do a good job, it was games such as tonight’s where we need to take the game by its scruff and grab the maximum points.

In a season filled with a FIFA World Cup break in the middle and the timing of the tournament so close, it is certainly playing a part in many players ahead to prevent a serious injury from happening.

Due to the tournament happening in the middle of the season, it has led to congestion of fixtures with teams playing in Europe having to play every third day. This is also a major factor behind the drop in performance as players are not able to recover in time to have another go for ninety minutes.

With a golden opportunity to close the distance on our top four rivals gone today, hopefully, it does not come back to bite us later in the season.

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With another game against Aston Villa midweek followed by the last league game against Fulham before the World Cup break, Ten Hag needs to get his player’s mindset right and do not allow a loss of focus that can potentially harm us come the end of the season.