Jonny Evans says Manchester United have to move on from their derby disappointment and believes injuries have played a part in Erik ten Hag’s second season struggles.
A promising first campaign under the Dutchman has been forgotten as a challenging start to this term continued with Sunday’s humbling at home to Manchester City.
Erling Haaland’s brace and a late Phil Foden goal sealed City a derby victory at Old Trafford that was more one-sided than even the 3-0 scoreline suggested.
Outclassed, outthought and outmanoeuvred for the most part, it was an embarrassing end to the Red Devils’ admittedly unconvincing three-match winning run in all competitions.
“It’s never easy – everyone’s disappointed,” said experienced defender Evans, who was frustrated by the decision to award a first-half penalty for Rasmus Hojlund’s tug on Rodri.
“You wish you could turn back the clock, but you know we’ve got to move on now.
“We’re disappointed obviously. We put a lot into the second half to get back and you know 2-0, maybe the chance with Rashy (Marcus Rashford) we sort of get back in it.
“But you know (it’s) probably disappointing that we didn’t create too much in the second half.”
Sunday’s defeat means United have lost five of their opening 10 league games, leaving them 11 points behind leaders Tottenham and Evans believes that absentees are a mitigating factor.
United boss Ten Hag has had deal with a swathe of injuries, with Casemiro, Lisandro Martinez, Luke Shaw, Tyrell Malacia, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Amad Diallo ruled out of the derby.
Four of those played key roles in February’s Carabao Cup triumph against Newcastle, who head to Old Trafford in the fourth round on Wednesday as the holders look to bounce back from Sunday’s City humiliation.
“At this club that’s what it’s all about, you’ve got to (move on),” defender Evans, who returned to the club in the summer, told MUTV.
“We’ll be preparing for the next game now and making sure preparations are ready.
“I think we’ve been disrupted with a lot of injuries this season in terms of key personnel.
“Probably a lot of our starting players would be, you know, they’re missing.
“I think the manager’s found out difficulties having to sort of work on team, on tactics and having to change the personnel quite a lot with only two days in between games.
“So that’s been difficult, hopefully we can get more players back and get a real sort of opportunity to create freshness within the playing squad.”
City lost at Newcastle in the previous round, so Pep Guardiola’s side get a rare midweek off before hosting Bournemouth in the Premier League on Saturday.
Haaland will be expected to add to this season’s 13-goal haul when the Cherries come to town, fresh from using Old Trafford taunts to fuel his brace and assist on Sunday.
“The performance was incredible,” the striker told the club website.
“Fantastic from every single player. Fantastic from every Manchester City player. It was fantastic.
“I think we performed throughout the 90 minutes, every single minute.
“We controlled the whole game. Big shoutout to everyone. I’m happy to play in this team.”
'I will keep fighting' - Ten Hag adamant he is the right manager for Man Utd
Erik ten Hag insists that he is the right man for the job at Manchester United despite their 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Crystal Palace on Monday.
Michael Olise netted twice against a sorry United team at Selhurst Park, with Jean-Philippe Mateta and Tyrick Mitchell also getting on the scoresheet.
It is the first time that Palace have done the double over the Red Devils in the Premier League, as United extended their winless run on the road to five games.
There has been a lot of speculation over Ten Hag’s future following a disappointing second campaign in charge, with just one year left on his contract.
Asked if he was the right manager for United, he told Sky Sports: "Absolutely. If the right players are there and available, we have a good squad, but are missing the whole backline – we had problems.
"I will keep fighting. I prepared the team in the best way I could do. It was not good enough, by far – I have to take responsibility for that. But I will find energy and prepare them for Sunday’s game.
"At the end of the day, I have to do it with the players who are available. All season, we have huge [injury] problems. Many times we have sorted it out. Today we didn’t."
United have struggled with injury problems all season, with Harry Maguire and club captain Bruno Fernandes joining the lengthy list of players missing against Palace.
Ten Hag highlighted the lack of defensive options at his disposal but did not make excuses for the poor performance, adding: "It’s clear and obvious – this is underperforming. It’s not good enough. We are very disappointed in this. Our fans were behind us all the way – we should have kept fighting like the fans did.
"There are always reasons. Everyone sees our backline, we have huge problems, but at the end of the day we have to deal with it – we should have done better than we did.
"We know [how damaging it could be], but we have nine points to play, so we have to fight for the nine points."
Man Utd thrashing a 'big statement' but Palace are not surprised, says Eze
Eberechi Eze says Crystal Palace's 4-0 thrashing of Manchester United is a "big statement" but insists there should be little surprise that it happened.
Micheal Olise scored twice as Palace ran riot against the sorry Red Devils at Selhurst Park on Monday.
Jean-Philippe Mateta and Tyrick Mitchell also got in on the act as Palace sealed their first league double over United.
Palace have now won four of their last five Premier League games, with Oliver Glasner having turned the tide in the past few weeks.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Eze said: "It says a lot, it's a big statement, but we're not surprised.
"We know what we're capable of, we know what we can do. The quality we've got in the dressing room is high – we don't see it as a surprise. We know what we came here to do today, it worked.
"You can see we’re creating chances, we're not worried about what's going on behind us. We're attacking, pressing, we're aggressive – we're going to continue to create chances for sure."
Also speaking to Sky Sports, Glasner said: "Congratulations to the team. I think in the first half, we didn't play as well as we could, but we were very efficient and scored very nice goals.
"At half-time, we made some adaptations, and the second half was much better. We created a lot of chances, scored some nice goals, and it's a great win.
"We know we have quality when we get our players in situations to score a goal.
"Good players, a good team spirit, but we must always stay humble. It's not so long ago we were struggling [in a relegation battle]. We are doing well, but we have a lot to improve."
This was Palace's biggest Premier League win since beating Leeds United 5-1 in April 2023, while it also marked their biggest on home soil in the competition since a 5-0 victory over Leicester City in April 2018.
Udinese 1-1 Napoli: Struggling Bianconeri grab last-gasp home draw
Napoli were held to a 1-1 draw at relegation-battling Udinese in Serie A on Monday after a stoppage-time goal by forward Isaac Success cancelled out a Victor Osimhen header.
Osimhen nodded home to give Napoli the lead in the 51st minute after Matteo Politano sent a lofted cross from the right into the middle of the box, and the Nigerian striker headed the ball in off the left post.
The Nigerian thought he doubled their advantage in the 80th minute, but his effort was ruled out for offside, before Success bundled in the leveller in stoppage time, netting from a Thomas Kristensen header.
Napoli moved up to eighth on 51 points from 35 games and are nine points behind both fifth-placed Atalanta and Roma, in sixth.
Data Debrief:
Osimhen is the third Napoli player to score in six matches in a row against a single team in Serie A in the three-points-for-a-win era, after Gonzalo Higuain against Lazio between 2013 and 2016 and Dries Mertens against Bologna between 2016 and 2019.
Despite fighting back to earn a point, Udinese have now failed to win three games under a new manager for the first time since August-September 2010 under Francesco Guidolin.
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