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Erik Ten Hag names two factors that helped Man United defeat Brighton in the FA Cup semifinals.
Erik ten Hag has stated that Manchester United’s ‘determination and resilience’ were responsible for their FA Cup semi-final victory on Sunday.
The Red Devils struggled for the whole of their match against Brighton & Hove Albion at Wembley Stadium, and they had to rely on David de Gea’s outstanding goaltending and the performance of their back four to get them to the penalty shootout, which they won 7-6.
Ten Hag emphasised this during his post-game interview with BBC Sport, noting that the performance was generally vastly improved from Man Utd’s disaster class versus Sevilla in the Europa League on Thursday evening.
“On Thursday I saw a team I didn’t recognise but today we went back to usual. I could see determination and resilience. We fought for every yard and competed in every battle. We had good chances.”
After the victory, Ten Hag also took the time to compliment both Victor Lindelof, who converted the game-winning penalty, and De Gea, who was Man Utd’s best player. The manager mentioned Lindelof and said:
“He is quite cool when it comes to penalties and he’s quite cool in general. I thought Victor and Luke Shaw played brilliantly. They had great co-operation with Casemiro.”
When discussing De Dea, Ten Hag said he was impressed by his ability to bounce back from Thursday’s much-derided showing in Spain: “I was very impressed with him. He made some brilliant saves. It hurt when he made mistakes on Thursday.
“Often when you make mistakes as a keeper you get punished. We let him down, we didn’t fight back for him. We bounced back today though.”
On Saturday, June 3, the FA Cup final will pit Manchester United against its neighbour and rival Manchester City.