Erik ten Hag admitted his flakey Manchester United players “got away with it” after they scraped into the FA Cup final on penalties.
United blew a 3-0 lead with 20 minutes left, then survived a VAR call in the final minute of extra-time, when Coventry had what looked to be the winning goal disallowed for offside. Ten Hag was in no mood to spare his players his anger, despite seeing his side set up a repeat of last season’s final against local rivals Manchester City.
“On several occasions we let each other down,” said Ten Hag. “Today we got away with it. We have to improve. We talk a lot about this. First you have to put yourself in a winning position, but then you have to take it over the line.
“In these moments we were making mistakes and not keeping our responsibilities. In the final part there was a lack of discipline. We have to keep the ball, keep making passes, go for goal and be strong in defence. It's about communication and we have to improve on this.
"It's mixed feelings in the dressing room. We can be happy with the achievement, getting to the final, that's huge. I see the mistakes we made, but it’s not an embarrassment, it’s a huge achievement.
"We need to win that final, though. I'm sure we have a good chance to win it, although we play the best team in the world.”
United skipper Bruno Fernandes said: “We put ourselves in a difficult position. We had the game controlled and could have killed it but we didn't. We have to do much better. The standard of this club is much higher than what we've been doing.
“We know that we have to do much better in the big competitions. Obviously we want to win the FA Cup, but we know this club is much bigger than that."
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