Man Utd's Erik ten Hag gives firm answers about Anthony Martial and poor defending

Manchester United continued their strong start to life under Erik ten Hag with victory in their second pre-season friendly on Friday.

While, yes, there are only so many things that you can take from non-competitive matches, the Red Devils are certainly giving plenty of positive signs about the new era dawning at Old Trafford.

After the debacle that was the 2021/22 season in which both Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick desperately struggled to arrest the club’s slump, the appointment for Ten Hag seems to have aligned the club back onto a single-minded path if nothing else.

With reports detailing everything from strict rules for the players to training footage highlighting the coach’s vast tactical knowledge, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that Ten Hag really is the right man for United.

And you can hardly say that his first games in the Red Devils dugout have done anything to suggest the contrary, bagging four goals in victories over both Liverpool and Melbourne Victory.

However, there was one key difference between the two pre-season results and that revolves around the fact that United didn’t keep a clean sheet during the latter triumph.

The Old Trafford club smashed four unanswered goals past Liverpool courtesy of Jadon Sancho, Fred, Anthony Martial and Facundo Pellistri, but things weren’t quite so plain-sailing at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqZ8yRPZRDI 

That’s because Ten Hag was subjected to cheeky ‘sacked in the morning’ chants as United found themselves trailing 1-0 to the A-League side when Chris Ikonomidis scored after just five minutes.

And to make matters worse, it came as the result of pretty miserable defending from United as the Australians managed to break