Erik ten Hag hits back at Jamie Carragher as Manchester United boss responds to pundit's 'failed strategy' claim

Erik ten Hag has responded to Jamie Carragher's harsh criticism about Manchester United's defensive play during their recent defeat against Fulham.

The former Liverpool star and current Sky Sports analyst, slammed United heavily for their approach in Saturday's 2-1 loss, their tenth this season in the English Premier League. He claimed that he'd never seen such a performance, suggesting that Ten Hag had failed with his strategy.

However, the Old Trafford boss has hit back at these comments, stating: "First of all, some analysts are very objective in their comments, very good advice, some are very subjective. Jamie Carragher, from the first moment on has criticised, and now he wants to make his point. Probably in the first half an hour, yeah, he had a point. Fulham, in their midfield set up, was a little bit surprising and then we have to find the solutions. After half an hour, we found the solutions, but I was not pleased with the performance with the defending, especially on the left side. They came out, especially in the first half an hour, several times on the left side, and that can't happen.

”That has to do with willingness, spirit, passion and that was, in the previous weeks, very good for this team and therefore, we won football games. I know footballers are not robots, sometimes they have bad, days. But it can't be, it's unacceptable, we have to do better tomorrow but in the weeks before we have done very well. It can't happen when they have a throw-in in the corner [that they go on and score]. How we managed it as a team was not good.”

Sky Sports pundit Carragher said on Monday Night Football: "I want to highlight [Kobbie] Mainoo, who has been fantastic since he came in, but the problem I have - it's not a