Erik ten Hag criticized Manchester United’s “passion, desire, and willingness” after Sevilla defeated them in the quarterfinals of the Europa League.
United, who conceded two late own goals in the first leg last week to level the game at 2-2, put on another frantic defensive performance at Roman Sanchez Pizjuan, where they lost 5-2 overall.
Again, Youssef En-Nesyri scored a brace after mistakes from David de Gea and Harry Maguire cost Ten Hag’s team two goals.
Ten Hag argued that there was no justification for the visitors’ performance despite the absence of several important players for United, including the injured Lisandro Martinez, Raphael Varane, and the suspended Bruno Fernandes.
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“We have to do better, that’s the demand.
“We were not composed, not calm,” he told BT Sport.
“We didn’t beat the press; when you do, there are so many spaces behind, and it was obvious at the start how to do it.
“We lost the battles, they had more passion, more desire, more willingness.
“That’s difficult to win games.
“It’s about the players on the pitch.
“They have to perform, I believe in them and trust them, but they have to show it, and they were not good enough.
“We have shown on so many occasions good things, but tonight we weren’t ready for the game.
“At this level, playing for Manchester United, you have to be ready for every game.
“This was a great opportunity, a great occasion, to win something, and we gave it away – we have to blame ourselves.
“It’s gone, we can’t change it.
“We have to look forward to Sunday [against Brighton and Hove Albion in the FA Cup semi-finals], that’s the next opportunity.”
Christian Eriksen acknowledged that United had blown the chance to get to the semifinals for the third time in four seasons and that they were not at their best.
“A lot of things happened.
“We didn’t really give them a game from the first minute, and we gave them a lot of opportunities to finish us off,” the midfielder said.
“We lost a bit of our coolness, we made more mistakes than we usually do, and the whole team could not catch up with mistakes our team-mates made.
“If you give away goals like we did, you lose, it’s nothing to do with the atmosphere. Our own game was not strong enough. It’s football, sometimes you have good days, sometimes you have bad days, and it was a bad day.
“Every football player makes mistakes, they punished us straight away. It’s how we bounce back, and today we were not strong enough to bounce back from the mistakes.”