Christian Eriksen: Manchester United midfielder says players must ‘take blame’ for Crystal Palace thrashing

Christian Eriksen believes Manchester United's players should shoulder the blame for their heavy Premier League defeat to Crystal Palace - not manager Erik ten Hag.

The Red Devils were on the wrong end of a 4-0 drubbing at Selhurst Park on Monday night.

It means qualifying for European football next season via the league is now out of their hands, as they sit in eighth place in the table with three games remaining.

Should they stay in that position, it would be their lowest finish since coming 13th in 1989-90.

Recent results do little to suggest United will start moving up the table, as they have won just one of their last seven top flight fixtures.

They are without a number of key players at the moment, including captain Bruno Fernandes and several first-choice defenders, but Eriksen insists that is no excuse.

"We just had an off-day and we weren’t in it," he told BBC Sport. "It is what it is. We can’t really change the injury things.

"We have to do what we can on the pitch to change it. Today it didn’t matter who we played. Everyone could have done better.

“I don’t know what the conclusion is for how it went. We weren’t good enough. We tried to do what we could, but we were not good enough. We’ll take the blame as players.”

The loss at Selhurst Park was United's seventh-largest margin of defeat during the Premier League era, and comes after the 7-0 loss at Anfield to Liverpool last year.

Eriksen admits he is struggling to put his finger one what is going wrong, as he added: “It’s difficult to say the reason to how it’s going as it is, but I think the confidence, the belief is a big one.

“I think it’s been all of this season when we got the first goal against, we try to come back, but in every good period we have, we concede.

“Today there weren’t many good periods, so it was a lot of running behind the ball and really not getting the ball and doing anything.”

One thing in Ten Hag's favour is that he could still deliver some silverware to Old Trafford this season, as the club are through to the FA Cup final.

The Red Devils will take on bitter rivals Manchester City at Wembley later this month.

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