Ten Hag: Forwards have to click

The Reds go into the meeting with City on the back of three straight victories in all competitions, although the five goals across those games have come exclusively from defenders and midfielders.

The likes of Rasmus Hojlund and Marcus Rashford have shown promise with their partnership in recent weeks, but the boss feels something still has to ‘click’ as we seek to be more clinical after several near-misses, especially against Sheffield United and FC Copenhagen.

“It's co-operation and that has to click,” Ten Hag said in his Friday press conference.

“We showed, this week, some examples where we are in overload positions going to the opponents' goal and we don't net, or we don't even hit the target. We should do this better.

“I'm sure we don't have time to train this fact, but we get some coaching and I'm convinced with the qualities from our players, that they will go and score more goals."

Rashford has the one goal to his name so far this campaign, at Arsenal, following his personal-best tally of 30 in 2022/23.

While it’s not been falling Marcus’s way in forward areas so far, Ten Hag is confident that last term's leading scorer will find form soon.

“Especially [we have to] give him the trust, I play him every game. Most of the games also he finishes.

“I have a strong belief he will return to scoring a lot of goals.”

That individual improvement will come with bringing the team up a level or two, according to the Dutchman, as we seek to close the gap on our city rivals.

“In this moment, we are six points back, so we have to catch up,” Erik added when comparing United’s position to City’s.

“We know we have to progress the team, so we have to make developments, as I said in the question about Rashy.

“But it also has to do with the co-operation, with the movement around, with the distribution to him. And so we have to work on that. That is my focus point."