Erik ten Hag has not fixed Manchester United issue Roy Keane identified two months ago

Manchester United were well beaten by Manchester City on Sunday and the biggest concern for Erik ten Hag will be that long-term problems continued to surface.

United started relatively well on Sunday but were quickly pinned back by their Manchester rivals, helped in no part by a controversial penalty decision that allowed Erling Haaland to open the scoring. From that point, City controlled the game and attacked at will.

Pep Guardiola's side were imperious at Old Trafford but life was made easy for them, with United once again looking leggy. Sofyan Amrabat was hooked at half-time after a torrid 45 minutes, with Scott McTominay - moved into the deeper role upon Christian Eriksen's introduction - faring little better.

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That lack of bite in midfield has been a constant issue for Ten Hag this season, whose main enforcer Casemiro has been off the pace. In the first two games of the season, both Wolves and Tottenham built their performances on dominating in that area and Keane was quick to point the issue out.

"I said before the game they were poor vs Wolves but got the result and would be better today. They weren't," Keane told Sky Sports after the 2-0 defeat at Tottenham. "We made the point that they were fine in the first half hour, but the game is over 90 minutes. Obviously you're not going to dominate that long but you have to show some belief, desire, fight.

"You're looking at our captain tonight, the senior players who are established, international players. It’s easy to play against them, that's the biggest insult I can give to these United players.

"They just looked