The legendary former Arsenal manager pointed out two key factors that led to Manchester United’s recent loss to Manchester City.
Arsene Wenger has remarked on the lack of cohesion and confidence in the Manchester United team.
On Sunday, United crashed to a 3-0 home defeat to Manchester City. Wenger feels they struggled to build up play from the back, gave the ball away frequently, and didn’t play forward when opportunities arose.
As the match progressed, the gap between the two sides grew wider. Erling Haaland’s brace and Phil Foden’s late goal settled the derby at Old Trafford.
“I don’t see where they can improve,” Wenger said on beIN Sports.
“This team has lost confidence, quality, and even spirit today. I would say it was not a great fighting spirit from Man United, on top of that.
“I believe where Man United suffers a lot, first of all is about the quality, the individual quality of the players.
“And I felt today they were very poor to build the game up from the back. They gave the ball so many times to the goalkeeper when they had the possibility to play forward. I would stay it started there.
“Then you make the whole team uncertain and lack confidence because when you feel the fear is behind, they do not want the ball.
“I would say the second part of their big problem today was the distances between the striker and the defenders were huge.
“There were situations where the strikers were closing down, trying to pressure, and the defenders were 20 meters behind the halfway line.”
Wenger added: “You cannot win the ball back against a team like Man City when the distances are too big. The team was not compact enough. After that the difference of individual quality.”
United are set to resume their Carabao Cup title defense with a match against Newcastle on Wednesday.
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