Owen Hargreaves has defended under-fire Manchester United keeper David de Gea as he blasted the Red Devils for their dreadful performance at Brentford.
United fell to a dire 4-0 thrashing at the hands of the Bees on Saturday evening, with many pointing the finger of blame at De Gea. First, he allowed Josh Dasilva's long-range effort to squirm under his arms instead of making what appeared to be a simple save.
Then when trying to play out from a goal-kick, he gifted Brentford possession after passing the ball to Christian Eriksen, who was being closely marked. That allowed Mathias Jensen to nip in and fire the ball in, putting the Bees in total control.
While he could not be criticised for either of the other two Brentford goals, De Gea took full responsibility for costing his team any points. But Hargreaves believes it is unfair to put the blame totally on the Spaniard and instead criticised United's apparent lack of preparation for taking on Thomas Frank's side.
"They made some mistakes and the goals were poor. There was no fight to get back into the game, no tackling, no aggression. Football at this level is about competition, that’s how you make it," the former United star said.
"Brentford won every battle today. You’ve got to win the battles. They weren’t ready against Brighton and they weren’t ready again. Erik ten Hag is a super coach, he did an amazing job at Ajax.
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"But these two games have not gone to plan. I don’t know how you can turn this around quickly. The confidence is just gone. It’s a privilege and honour to wear that football shirt. We’ve all been there as players, had terrible games.
"But you get through it by fighting and competing. Forget about the tactics, it’s about winning your individual battles. I was hopeful [we would see a response after Brighton]. I’m tired of being critical and negative.
"But what can you say? There wasn’t any positives. Don’t put all the blame on [David de Gea]. Yes he made a huge mistake, but there is plenty of time to get back into the game and fight back. David has been in those teams where they do fight back, but it was not there today."
De Gea himself fronted up to conduct the post-match interviews, despite his horrorshow performance. And despite Hargreaves insisting the reasons for the loss were deeper, he took total responsibility.
"I think I cost my team three points today. It was a poor performance from myself. After the first mistake and then the second, it was very tough to be playing and it was a horrible day," De Gea told Sky Sports.
"Of course, we should react better but the moment we are living now is tough, every time we concede a goal. I should've saved the first shot and probably the result would be different."
