Manchester United’s Champions League run came to an abrupt end when they lost to Bayern Munich.
On a night when they needed three points to have any hope of making it to the round of16, the Red Devils fell short 1-0 at Old Trafford. Even though things didn’t work out for them elsewhere, they only had themselves to blame for blowing the five opportunities they had.
Instead, a beautiful finish inside the box in the 70th minute gave the winner to the always dangerous Kingsley Coman. In Sir Alex Ferguson’s era, it would have been unheard of for a team to fail to advance out of their group. Daily Star Sport examines Erik ten Hag’s tactical errors that caused his team to exit the competition early.
Bayern’s lethal wide players would have required United to put in a lot of work on the training field to stop them, but it didn’t seem to pay off as the Bundesliga champions generated opportunity after opportunity from wide areas. From the beginning, Noussair Mazraoui and Kingsley Coman in particular wrecked havoc on the right side.
While Coman and Sane were often finding space in the channels, the former was unfortunate not to receive an assist in the first half. Finally, late in the second half, Coman scored a goal when the Frenchman in the United area was completely unmarked.
Scott McTominay and Sofyan Amrabat provided very little when United needed a huge performance. They were rendered invisible as Bayern’s midfielders outplayed them, highlighting the disparity in skill levels between the two teams.
One reason for United’s lack of originality is their choice of midfield players. Even though Ten Hag didn’t have a better option against Bayern, his summer signing of Amrabat is beginning to seem like a bad move.
In favor of Hojlund
The striker entered the match as the competition’s co-top scorer. However, he had nothing to work with because rival players would repeatedly shove him off the ball and encircle him on his first touch.
The absence of any true attacking tendencies throughout Ten Hag’s tenure so far is the most worrying aspect, and Hojlund is undoubtedly a victim of it. While Ten Hag laments the lack of players of the caliber he had at Ajax, other managers are currently accomplishing far more with far less resources.
However, Ten Hag was able to get a few things correct:
Belief in Onana
When your goalie has committed as many mistakes this season as Andre Onana has, it is simple to lose faith in them. Due to mistakes committed in the opening match against Bayern and against Galatasaray, United’s situation at this time was catastrophic, in large part because of the £47.2 million goalkeeper.