ERIK TEN HAG has thanked Manchester City for the footballing lesson that shows him how far his team still has to go.
Ten Hag’s Manchester United were demolished 6-3 as Pep Guardiola’s men ran riot taking a 4-0 lead by the break.
After four straight wins including those over league leaders Arsenal and last year’s runners-up Liverpool, United had entered the match full of confidence.
They finished it realising just how far in the distance the summit of English football remains.
Ten Hag said: “We get a reality check with Man City, we know we have to step up. So thank you for the lesson, Pep and City, we will take that, and we have to understand we have to do things much better.
“I know when you’re in a process it will not go only on the upside, you will have setbacks.
“We beat the No1 in the league Arsenal, we beat Liverpool.
“On Sunday we had a bad day at the office and we got beat, in this moment on that day City was better, we have to accept that, but we can’t accept our performance, that was unacceptable.”
As revealed by SunSport, captain Bruno Fernandes and Lisandro Martinez could be heard in The Etihad corridor as they tore into their team-mates at the break.
Fernandes said: “Obviously we know the game we did was not good enough for our standards, for what we have set for ourselves, for what we want to achieve this season.
“We have let down the club altogether, not just one or two players. Altogether we didn’t do enough to win the game, to get points from that game.
“We all – when I say all I mean all, starting with me - are disappointed with the result obviously.
“We have to take that and see what margin we still have to improve. It's still a long way to go.
“We know what we want to achieve, we know what we want to do.
“I know what the manager wants from me. I think we all know what the manager wants for us as a team and I think now it's just the time to get back to the good results.”
United have the chance to do just that in the Europa League in Cyprus against Omonia Nicosia.
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Fernandes says that while they have to take lessons from the derby defeat they should not forget the good work that was done in four straight league wins prior to that.
He said: “We get our four consecutive wins against big teams, against Arsenal who are doing really well, with Leicester and Southampton who are tough to play away and obviously with Liverpool.
“Now we have had this setback but it has not changed our ideas or our way of playing or what we want to do as a team. I think it should be like that.
“The club should change nothing at all because it is a process as the manager says.
“If you got to the reality that we have had three months with the manager. It is completely different ideas and I think the team is doing really well.
"We had a bad result against one of the better teams in our league so it is tough because they are a rival and its a derby but now it is time to get back and win straight away.”
