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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Colin Millar

Erik ten Hag makes Man Utd decision after two Champions League matches delayed

Manchester United players arrived at Old Trafford more than four hours ahead of kick-off for their Europa League Round of 16 clash against Real Betis.

It comes in the same week as two Champions League matches in London being delayed. On Tuesday, Chelsea's match against Borussia Dortmund was delayed by ten minutes after the away side's team bus arrived late to Stamford Bridge. A full 24 hours on from that, Tottenham's clash with AC Milan was delayed by 10 minutes due to the heavy traffic around Spurs' North London stadium.

Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag was taking no chances ahead of his side hosting Real Betis in the Europa League at Old Trafford. Although, it has been normal for the players this season to arrive a few hours before kick-off to prepare for matches.

United's squad tends to arrive for their home matches at a similar time while Ten Hag has encouraged them to eat and relax together as a group, allowing them to have one eye on the match without any outside distractions.

The match in Manchester is expected to be played in freezing cold conditions with weather forecasts predicting that the temperature at kick-off will be zero degrees with snowfall forecast.

The Met Office issued an amber weather warning for the region on Thursday evening.

Erik ten Hag wrapped up to combat the weather conditions at Old Trafford on Thursday (Ash Donelon/Getty Images)

Have Your Say! Will Man Utd be able to bounce back from Sunday’s defeat at Anfield as they face Betis? Tell us what you think here.

On Tuesday, Dortmund head coach Edin Terzic confirmed the bus was stranded just outside the stadium in Fulham for around 15 minutes, which disrupted their preparation.

Terzic told BT Sport: "We had a bit of a delay, but now we are here and we are ready we are going to fight for the next round.

"We didn't know if we were going to start on time or if there was going to be a delay to the kick-off. We've been in front of the stadium for 15 minutes, so it's been disturbing a lot, but this won't stop us today."

The Tottenham squad on Wednesday, meanwhile, were only able to come out from the dressing room to warm up 30 minutes before the new kick-off time, meaning their pre-match preparations were rushed.

As it transpired both Dortmund and Tottenham, the sides whose preparation was heavily disrupted ahead of their respective games, both crashed out of European competition for this season without scoring a goal.

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