Ten Hag happy with Manchester United’s creativity despite the loss to Liverpool

Manchester United manager Erik Ten Hag said he was happy that his side created several chances despite losing 3-0 to Liverpool in their pre-season friendly.

United had 18 shots, 8 of which were on target. They underperformed their expected goals (xG) by 1.49 on the night. In fact, Liverpool were behind on all these metrics but still won comfortably.

Ten Hag spoke about these things after the game. “Today, we created many chances, and I would be concerned if we didn’t create chances. I’m pleased with the way we created chances out of open play but also from good pressing situations and good counter-pressing situations.”

United will now go to face Manchester City in the Community Shield which will be the official season opener. “You learn a lot about your team [on pre-season]. Now we have to recover, and then go to prepare the next game, and it is a big game [vs Man City]”, the Dutch manager said.

The Red Devils unfortunately have a number of injury concerns with new signing Leny Yoro and striker Rasmus Højlund expected to miss at least the entirety of the next couple of months. Marcus Rashford also went down with an injury in this game and had to be subbed off. It remains to be seen what the official stance on that one is.

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