Erik ten Hag gives one-word response to Man Utd sack fears in message to Sir Jim Ratcliffe
Crystal Palace handed Manchester United their heaviest defeat of the season to pile the pressure on Erik ten Hag and leave the Red Devils' European hopes hanging in the balance
Erik ten Hag maintained he's "absolutely" the right man to lead Manchester United forward despite his team sinking to a 4-0 defeat away at Crystal Palace to prompt questions about his future.
Michael Olise scored twice for Palace, with Jean-Philippe Mateta and Tyrick Mitchell also on target. It could have easily been five, too, with Odsonne Edouard beating Andre Onana but seeing his shot cannon back off the post.
Ten Hag's team were missing several players through injury, and were forced to field a makeshift centre-back pairing of Casemiro and Jonny Evans. Club captain Bruno Fernandes was also absent, but despite the long absentee list the performance earned a great deal of criticism.
With three games of the season to go, United sit eighth and face an uphill battle to qualify for Europe through their league placing. Ten Hag, however, insisted he can lead the club back to where they need to be.
"I will keep fighting," Ten Hag told Sky Sports after the game. "I prepared the team in the best way I could do. It was not good enough - by far not good enough - I have to take the responsibility for that. But I will find energy and I will prepare them for Sunday's game [against Arsenal ].
"At the end of the day I have to do it with the players who are available. All season we have huge problems and right now this is the fourth defeat in this calendar year, which is not a lot. Every time we had huge problems and many times we saw it out, today we didn't."
When asked if he felt he was the right man to lead United forward, the former Ajax boss said: "Absolutely." He added: "If the right players are there and available, we have a good squad, but we missed almost a whole back line and then we have problems."
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Ten Hag's struggles come at a time of flux under part-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Jason Wilcox has been appointed as technical director, with work still being done to finalise transfer chief Dan Ashworth's move from Newcastle.
United midfielder Christian Eriksen admitted the performance was not at the level fans have come to expect from United. "A big disappointment. We just had an off-day and we weren't in it," the Danish international told BBC Sport.
"It is what it is. We can't really change the injury things. We have to do what we can on the pitch to change it. Today it didn't matter who we played. Everyone could have done better.
"I don't know what the conclusion is for how it went. We weren't good enough. We tried to do what we could but we were not good enough. We'll take the blame as players."
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