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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Samuel Luckhurst

Erik ten Hag criticises five things about Manchester United performance vs Aston Villa

Erik ten Hag branded Manchester United's 3-1 defeat at Aston Villa "unacceptable" after they suffered their fourth Premier League defeat of the season.

Villa ended a 23-game winless league run at home to United that dated back to August 1995 through goals from Leon Bailey, Lucas Digne and Jacob Ramsey.

Ten Hag only made one change from the United side that beat Real Sociedad in their final Europa League group stage game on Thursday but the returning Marcus Rashford was played out of position on the right wing with Antony still absent through injury.

READ MORE: United player ratings vs Aston Villa

United went 2-0 down inside the first 11 minutes and Ten Hag lamented their failure to play on the front foot against a Villa side reenergised by new coach Unai Emery.

Ten Hag was particularly annoyed with the distance of the United wall to defend Digne's free-kick that put Villa 2-0 up. "When you lose the game, [when you] start the first-half, start of the second half, when you start a game like this you get beat.

"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.

"When you start the game you always have the attitude and it was one of our best standards [that] we are really front foot, we are really ready to play in all the games until now. Today we were not from the start.

"Then you're running behind the facts. We didn't let them run, especially in the start of the game, we didn't follow the rules in defending and we lost our battles.

"Already, I'm in football a long time, they are persons, human beings are not robots, sometimes it's the way it is and it's psychological. But it is not acceptable. Don't get me wrong, we have to be ready for every game and not give games away so easily."

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