Manchester United have one more chance to fix key problem before next season

As Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United players gathered for their Friday debriefs they would have both gone through the good, the bad and the ugly from an entertaining but ultimately flawed Premier League game.

Erik ten Hag and Ryan Mason both had some positivity to sprinkle in their post-match press conference, but they also couldn't escape the elephants in the room and the issues that plague their teams.

This season looks like being more successful for United than it does for Spurs, but when Ten Hag and his staff begin to plan for next term and a more sustained challenge at the top, they will have one area that is clearly ripe for improvement.

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For 45 minutes in north London, they actually played well, although Ten Hag insisted afterwards he wasn't even that happy with the first half. They moved the ball quickly through midfield and created chances. A 2-0 lead against a time shorn of confidence should have been enough.

But if the opening half shone a light on Tottenham's weaknesses, the way they came back into the game after the break highlighted United's shortcomings. They lost control of an away game yet again.

As it stands United are 13 points behind Manchester City. That is the kind of improvement Ten Hag will need to find this summer. If they beat Aston Villa on Sunday then United will have taken just four points less at home than City from 16 games. But if City win at Fulham on the same day then they will have collected nine more points on the road from the same number of games. United have embraced data in the past two years, but even a nation apparently full of maths dummies can spot the issue here.

It's clear where problems