Erik ten Hag has defended David de Gea after his mistakes in Manchester United’s 3-0 defeat to Sevilla in the Europa League on Thursday evening. De Gea had a night to forget in Spain as he was partly at fault for Sevilla’s opening goal due to his decision to pass to an under-pressure Harry Maguire, who then lost possession which allowed Youssef En-Nesyri to score. The 32-year-old also made another clear error with nine minutes remaining as he failed to deal with a long ball towards his goal and his poor control enabled En-Nesyri to complete Sevilla’s deserved win. Ten Hag has already faced calls this season to replace De Gea this summer once the Spaniard’s contract with United expires. But when asked if De Gea is United’s long-term goalkeeper after the defeat to Sevilla, Ten Hag replied: ‘He is the one with the most clean sheets in the Premier League. So it shows he’s a very capable goalkeeper.’
Ten Hag also claimed the mentality shown by his United players in the loss to Sevilla was ‘unacceptable’. ‘I have to acknowledge that it is the truth: it is hard, it is tough and it can’t be. It’s unacceptable,’ said Ten Hag. ‘We have to learn. We have to start games better, more desire, passion, composure on the ball. And when we have a setback we have to deal with it and get back on the ball. We have to be better. It is not about the playing skills. It is about character. They had more willingness to win and that can’t be, I think it is unacceptable.
‘We have to pick the players up. But we also have to face that we let ourselves down, we have let the fans down. If you want to win trophies, if you want to be successful, you need character. I have had this [situation] many times… City, Liverpool, Brentford. And every time we bounced back. We have good mental skills, on some occasions we are not there. What we have to accept now is that it is unacceptable. Everyone can see that the demands and the standard has to be higher in a club such as Manchester United. We have seen we can do it against Forest. We had the desire and today we didn’t. You can expect that Manchester United players do it more consistently. Too often we have a really poor performance and that can’t be.