Erik ten Hag has called for better protection of players after Christian Eriksen suffered a severe ankle injury in Manchester United’s last outing.
The manager has addressed Andy Carroll’s reckless antics during United’s fourth-round FA Cup clash with Reading on Saturday, January 28.
Carroll lunged in with a two-footed tackle on the Dane after being dispossessed in the middle of the pitch. Eriksen was later substituted and it was confirmed yesterday that he will be sidelined until late March/early April with an ankle injury.
Despite having a clear view of the foul, the referee did not believe it warranted a yellow card and rewarded United only the free-kick. The forward then went on to make two further atrocious tackles, in which he was not even close to getting the ball, and was eventually red-carded after being shown two yellows.
Whilst you cannot know for sure the player’s intentions, the former Liverpool player looked fairly set on inflicting pain on United’s midfield throughout the night. It won’t make up for the fact that he won one League Cup in the prime of his career and is the epitome of an incompetent forward, though.
Ten Hag fumes over on-field decisions
Ten Hag was questioned on the incident in a press conference with MUTV. He said: “I am disappointed about that. I think football has to set limits and restrictions so that you protect the players. I think what football wants is the best players to be available on the pitch and this is a tackle, and the two tackles after it, they don’t belong on the football pitch, because it’s high risk to injure your colleague, it is worse.
“I wondered about that for instance at Crystal Palace where there was an elbow on [Lisandro] Martinez and I don’t even know if there was a whistle for a free-kick. But no one is interfering. I’m wondering about such things because it’s a risk of injury for the player.”
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