Manchester United striker Wout Weghorst admitted that he and his teammates were not happy with their first half performance during Wednesday night's 3-0 Carabao Cup semi-final first-leg victory over Nottingham Forest at the City Ground.
United, who have taken a giant stride towards reaching their first domestic cup final since 2018, went into the half-time interval two goals to the good, thanks to strikes from Marcus Rashford and Weghorst's first for the club. Rashford opened the scoring in stunning fashion with just six minutes on the clock, before the latter doubled their tally shortly before the interval.
But despite heading back to the dressing room with a commanding lead at the break, United had lacked the control in the first 45 minutes that manager Erik ten Hag is so often looking for. Forest grew into the contest after Rashford's opener and were only denied an equaliser thanks to VAR.
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However, Weghorst's maiden goal in United colours right on the stroke of the interval calmed any nerves, putting a real dent in Forest's aspirations of getting back into the game. Despite their advantage, however, Weghorst detailed the mood inside the dressing room at the break, explaining that his teammates had said they wanted "more control" in the second period.
"We were not happy," Weghorst told Sky Sports. "Of course the score, at the time, was good, but we were not happy with the way that we had played, as I said.
"We wanted to have more control and that was definitely something we needed to do. We wanted to make it our game and be more patient with the ball. That is something that we did in the second half, controlling the game and with it being 3-0 at the end it made it an even better result."
On scoring his first goal for the club since signing on loan from Burnley earlier this month, Weghorst added: "It is always special and you always want to score goals. You would prefer to have this first one, of course, as quick as possible.
"I am really happy and I think it was a really important moment [in the game], also. It gave us a way better feeling in the break.”
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