De Ligt: Manchester United players must take responsibility

Matthijs de Ligt, Manchester United’s central defender, has stated that the team’s players must take responsibility for the club’s poor results, amid growing pressure on coach Ruben Amorim. United suffered their third defeat in six Premier League matches this season, losing 3-1 against Brentford on Saturday. In addition, they were humiliated by League Two’s Grimsby in the Carabao Cup. Amorim, the Portuguese coach, has yet to achieve consecutive victories in the league during his 10 months in charge of the team. After finishing in 15th place last season, his lowest position since 1989-90, United is again in the bottom half of the table.

“Of course, it’s easy to point the finger at the coach, but in the end the players on the field are the ones who have to do the work,” De Ligt stated.

Matthijs de Ligt

“We can’t say that the goals we conceded, or the opportunities we conceded, are because of… I don’t know, you always talk about the system. That also has a lot to do with concentration and, if that’s missing at key moments, it will make the difference.”

United seemed to have gained confidence by beating Chelsea 2-1 a week earlier, although they enjoyed a numerical advantage for most of the first half of the match at Old Trafford due to Robert Sanchez’s early red card. However, that victory was a distant memory when Brentford striker Igor Thiago scored two goals in 20 minutes. After Benjamin Sesko reduced the deficit with his first goal for United, Bruno Fernandes missed a penalty in the final quarter, being stopped by Caoimhín Kelleher. It was the second penalty missed by the United captain this season in London, after missing another one last month against Fulham.

De Ligt commented: “[We are] really disappointed because during the whole week we were talking about keeping the momentum, about getting another victory. If you lose this match, obviously it’s a big blow. Many times it’s the same song, but we have to stay united. It’s the most important thing”.

Matthijs de Ligt“We lost against City, we won against Chelsea, so for the next match, we have to analyze what went wrong in this match because many things went wrong. We were bad at key moments where we made the wrong decisions. That makes a big difference in football. We also had bad luck with some opportunities, but overall, it wasn’t good enough. That’s a fact.” United will host Sunderland on Saturday and visit Liverpool, the league leader, just after the international break on October 19. On a day when Bryan Mbeumo, United’s summer signing, returned to Brentford after spending six years at the club, Thiago was the protagonist. The Brazilian striker, signed from Club Brugge for a then club-record £30 million in July 2023, has scored five goals this season, four of them in the Premier League. Brentford technical director Keith Andrews said about Thiago: “Unselfish, I think that would be the first thing that would come to mind. He always puts the team first, sometimes to the detriment of his own performance. I think he’s a team player. He’s now gaining rhythm in his game and confidence in his game, and he’s shown exactly what it’s all about and why the football club brought him here.”