Ten Hag demands more from United players despite 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest

Erik Ten Hag has called on his players to be ‘more ruthless’ as they got off a good start with a 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest in their first post-world cup match.

While welcoming the three points, Ten Hag noted the need for the players to always score more goals so that they can always save up more energy to prosecute subsequent encounters.

The Dutch manager, who believes that the team has a lot of potential in terms of turning in goals said the match and the clean sheet signal a good return from the World cup

“I’m happy with three goals and there could have been even more, and a clean sheet, so I think we have a good return after the break. It was nice to watch our game. We are growing but, after a break, you always see a setback and a drop in performance.”

“I can confirm that [is the case], because that is what I said in the dressing room. We have to score more goals. I think we created so many chances, it takes us until just before the end to make the third goal. I think we have to finish the game in earlier moments”.

“I think just after half-time, we created two really good chances and we have to finish the game. Many games are to come, you can then save more energy, which is better for everyone, but also for the progress of the team, you need that.

I think our players can score, you can see that, Martial is a goalscorer, Rashford is a goalscorer, Bruno Fernandes scores goals, so we have a lot of players who can score goals but we have to be ruthless.”

Goals from Rashford, Martial and Fred were all the Red devils needed to thump a struggling Nottingham Forest and move closer to the top four with 29 points.

United will face Wolves on December 31 before taking on AFC Bournemouth on the new year day.