In light of the short amount of time both Manchester United and Aston Villa have had, a point against them is not a bad result.
In a historic week, Villa beat Bayern Munich. At the same time, United lost a two-goal lead against Porto but came back to tie the game 3-3 in the Europa League.
Erik ten Hag had a terrible night. It was a great night for Villa. The game yesterday was anything but. To be honest, it was a pretty rough game of football. At the end, the xG was the lowest it had been in a Premier League match in two years.
So, what did you learn from the game? Well, Ten Hag has probably had a few more weeks on the bench since they didn’t lose.
The Dutch manager is getting more and more attention at Old Trafford, and he could lose his job if they keep losing. In any case, this is their worst start to a Premier League season after seven games.
Ten Hag’s team may have scored three goals last week, but they have now gone three league games without scoring in a row.
That run began against Crystal Palace and continued at home against Spurs. Against Emery’s team, they sadly looked just as toothless.
It was thought that young Rasmus Hojlund would make a difference, but he didn’t do anything on Sunday, so he was taken off after 64 minutes in the Midlands.
Why? Not very well. He held the ball up badly, didn’t run the channels well, and didn’t look like a good target inside the area.
Samuel Luckhurst, a reporter for the Manchester Evening News, gave the Dane a 4/10 grade for the game because he “got nowhere with or without the ball.”
One thing that might have best shown this was the fact that Hojlund had only 15 touches, while goalie Andre Onana had 37.
His five passes were also a lot less than Onana’s twenty-one. The 21-year-old will likely get better as he gets in better shape, but he may be dropped after the international break.
It was a bad game, and the fact that he was so weak in the duel—he only won one of five fights with the Villa defense showed how bad it was. Players like Pau Torres and Diego Carlos didn’t give him any change.
