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Manchester United were slammed for “a huge system error” as they stumbled to a limp 1-1 draw at home to FC Twente in the Europa League.
Speaking on TNT Sports after the match, pundit Karen Carney was baffled by United’s porous core, which allowed Bart van Rooij to ghost easily through the middle of the pitch and win the ground to set up his side’s equaliser.
Ultimately the finger points at Christian Eriksen, who was caught in possession and robbed by goalscorer Sam Lammers, but Carney was reluctant to blame just the Danish midfielder.
“From their goal kick, to run through the heart of your team and to get an equaliser, for me is a huge system error, it’s more than Eriksen’s mistake,” the former England international said.
Van Rooij stormed past feeble challenges from Marcus Rashford and Harry Maguire and skipped through a vacant midfield, but when the ball eventually broke to Eriksen the situation looked to be back under control.
However, the dawdling Dane lost control of the ball and Lammers smashed the equaliser in at Andre Onana’s near post, adding another to the long list of culprits.
Carney went on to denounce Eriksen’s post-match comments that Twente “looked like they wanted it more” as “unacceptable”.
“You can’t hear that, you can’t have that,” she said. “You’re 1-0 up, you have to be ruthless. I don’t see the ruthless edge.
“I don’t see that, I don’t feel that. There’s not enough credit in the bank for me to really really trust that I can guarantee a Man United result.
That’s what [Erik ten Hag] has to get out of his players, and I didn’t see it, particularly in the second half.”
Ten Hag’s team racked up 19 shots on goal but could only make one count, a thunderbolt lashed home by Eriksen to give his side the lead in the first half.
But Carney agreed with fellow pundit Owen Hargreaves that few, if any, of these chances were clear cut. She said of United’s chronically underperforming frontline that “they’ve got the talent there it’s just not clicking and not gelling”.
Feature image Carl Recine via Getty Images
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