Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag must shoulder his share of the blame for the team blowing a three goal lead.
Football is wildly unpredictable and anything can happen. Just ask Manchester United and Coventry City fansafter a crazy semi-final.
For Manchester United, however, attributing the game to just ‘football, bloody hell’, as Sir Alex Ferguson would say, doesn’t really cut it.
There will be an inquest into why United blew a 3-0 lead, with the game going to penalties. In fact, United were incredibly lucky not to lose 4-3.
Erik ten Hag error v Coventry
Manchester United were cruising to victory at 3-0 up after an hour, before Coventry improbably pulled back into the game to level it at 3-3 and force extra time.
What changed? Well, the first goal gave Coventry belief, and swung a little momentum back in their favour.
But Manchester United must take some blame, and the blame lays squarely with manager Erik ten Hag.
Erik ten Hag substituted two key players, and Manchester United’s performance fell off sharply.
Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo are the heartbeat of this United side, and once they came off, the team’s performance nosedived.
Neither player were having their best performance of the season, but both are huge influences on this team, and their replacements were both very poor.
Antony and Eriksen didn’t play well
When you take Alejandro Garnacho off, you let the opposition off the hook. Garnacho offers pace and threat in behind, also working to push the opposition full-backs from getting forward.
Antony is an entirely different type of player, and he scored poorly in our player ratings. He offered absolutely nothing.
Once Kobbie Mainoo came off, United relinquished control of the midfield. Christian Eriksen is fine with the ball at his feet, but without the ball, he might as well be invisible, which explains his lack of game time this season.
Ten Hag made a similar error against Chelsea when he took Garnacho off for Mason Mount, and United relinquished a 3-1 lead to lose 4-3.
Earlier in the year United fell apart against Nottingham Forest to lose 2-1 after Mainoo came off.
These two players can’t play every minute of every game, but the stand-ins are not up to scratch, or haven’t been in recent games, and United need better.
Ultimately it falls on manager Erik ten Hag to get it right, and against Coventry he got it wrong.
You might be able to do without one of Garnacho or Mainoo in key moments – but not both.