Manchester United preseason: Takeaways from Erik ten Hag's win over Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool
The Red Devils looked sharp in their first match of the summer, winning 4-0
By
James Benge
•
6 min read
You can forgive any Manchester United fans that might have got a bit carried away. Two of the defining facets of their decline since Sir Alex Ferguson left the club have been a failure to get their hands on silverware and a string of debilitating defeats to the old enemy Liverpool.
In one fell swoop, Erik ten Hag changed that at the Rajamangala Stadium. Now it was the Merseysiders on the end of a heavy 4-0 defeat, United captain Bruno Fernandes raising the Bangkok Century Cup high into the night. Well, at least he would have if the trophy were not so ludicrously unwieldy.
But for a sense of how much store one needs to put in preseason results, one needed only to look at Ten Hag's face as the confetti cannons cracked behind them, a quartet of faceless, wacky, waving inflatable tube guys leering menacingly over proceedings. His indifference was so great as to appear calculated. The new Manchester United manager had a message to get across to supporters -- don't you lot get carried away because I certainly am not.
It is a lesson that many beyond even United's fandom could do with appreciating. A cursory glance of Twitter when Arsenal trailed 2-0 to Nurnberg at halftime would have suggested that the end of days had arrived in north London; an hour later Gabriel Jesus was the second coming. Similar extremes were apparent from both the winners and losers of Tuesday's game. Some United jubilance and Liverpool frustration may well have been tongue in cheek, doubtless plenty was not. And if any club is acutely aware of the optics of social media it is Ten Hag's new one.
Whatever the reaction in the stands and online, there is rather more indifference within clubs. There is always the odd exception but by and large these results mean nothing. Most famously Arsenal's preparations for their undefeated 2003-04 Premier League season began with them being made to look eminently vincible by Division Two Peterborough before Barnet of the Conference held goalless the likes of Ray Parlour, Jeremie Aliadiere and Yaya Toure ("completely average on the day" according to Arsene Wenger). As Jose Mourinho put it when his Chelsea side lost 4-2 to a weakened New York Red Bulls seven years ago: "Preseason is fake, for good and for bad. If you're very bad, it's fake, and if you're too good, it's fake."
What then is the point of these games? Are clubs traveling halfway across the world to play local rivals to make money and engage their fanbases beyond England? Well, yes. That is very much the point. Give any Premier League manager autonomy over the club's summer plans and the majority would favor time spent in the mountains of Austria and Germany rather than long flights to the USA and Asia. They want time to work on fitness, tactics and shape rather than building the brand.
If these games do have a value for onlookers at this stage it is perhaps to see the extent to which players are adapting to fit their new managers' demands. Nowhere was that more apparent than in David de Gea's performance. The Spaniard enjoyed one of his best shot-stopping seasons at Manchester United in 2021-22 but questions over his suitability at the highest level have rarely been about whether he can keep the ball out of the net. Instead, it is what De Gea does with it when it is at his feet that has prompted questions.
He has shown a tendency to launch the ball far more frequently than Ederson or Alisson and is loath to leave his 18-yard box (in 38 Premier League games last season, he was involved in nine defensive actions outside the penalty area). If that is the baseline of what is to be expected from De Gea then his commitment to pass the ball short under not inconsiderable pressure from Liverpool forwards was notable.
So was De Gea's commitment to coming out to neuter what might have been an awkward bouncing ball on the edge of the area. The pass he flicked over the Liverpool front three towards Luke Shaw was quite elegantly judged and suddenly the first line of the press was beaten, a quick give and go between the left back and Fred very nearly released United into acres of space down the left.
It was notable that in a post-match interview where Ten Hag did his best to dampen expectations there was one aspect of his side's performance he was keen to offer qualified praise for.
"We know we are just starting and when things begin to click like the press ... We know we made some mistakes in pressing and conceded some chances but also we created a lot, and I think our team played bravely, they were proactive and we had to work really hard to get out of some mistakes," he said.
He might have been referring to moments such as this interception high up the pitch by Fred in the first half. United's structure looks solid indeed with precious few options available to Nathaniel Phillips. He might have knocked the ball out to his right back, but Marcus Rashford is well enough placed to apply pressure as soon as it heads in that direction. Instead, Phillips tries the riskier pass into the middle of the pitch, where the Brazilian slides in to get a boot on the ball.
Ultimately, Liverpool survived this particular bit of United pressure, Phillips just about emerging safe from a duel with Anthony Martial that might easily have gone the other way.
When United did win it back, Jadon Sancho looked rather more like the threatening right winger the club thought they were buying from Borussia Dortmund a year ago. With Diogo Dalot attacking the flank alongside him the England international was able to do what he does best, even teeing up his right back for a powerful effort that cannoned against the bar. The other chance Sancho created, it is worth noting, came from a willingness to chase a ball that looked to be a lost cause; when Phillips connected largely with fresh air, he was able to run away, teeing up Rashford for a promising shot.
Still, Ten Hag would not get carried away and neither should anyone else. If anything, some of the changes he made offered nothing more than a sense of how low the bar has been set at United over the past few years. Having a goalkeeper who is able to start attacks swiftly, knowing the positions to put key players in to get the most out of them: this should not have even the illusion of progress. And it is of course all more easily done when the intensity is as low as it is at the start of preseason in the baking heat of Bangkok.
How effectively this will translate into Premier League football is, for now, anyone's guess. All we can extrapolate from the first non-competitive game of the Ten Hag era is that his adjustments seem to make sense. It is fair to say though that that has not always been the case at United of late.
