Ten Hag: Delighted with Mount and Hojlund’s Return from Injury; Previous Loss to Crystal Palace Due to Too Many Injuries

At 00:30 on the morning of September 22, in the fifth round of the Premier League, Manchester United will play an away game against Crystal Palace. Before the match, Manchester United manager Ten Hag attended the press conference and promised that Manchester United would show a different performance compared to their 0-4 defeat to Crystal Palace in May.

Ten Hag said, “It’s really great news that Mount and Hojlund are back in training. We need to make a decision and see if their physical condition is sufficient for them to start. We are very happy that they have returned from injury to the squad. At this stage, we have many matches to play, and having players return makes us very happy. They have done some training, and we need to see how they are recovering. We will make a decision tomorrow (whether to let them start).

Ten Hag emphasized that the team should be cautious when dealing with injuries: “In top-flight leagues, you always experience injuries, which are inevitable. What we can do is to remain cautious. When you have a complete squad, it is easier to cope with the load of multi-front battles. But as last season, when players had to play, they were overburdened. Now, we hope to handle their return in a very cautious way.”

In May, Manchester United lost 0-4 to Crystal Palace. Speaking about this match, Ten Hag pointed out, “They deserved that result, but the situation on Saturday will be different. What lessons did I learn from that heavy defeat? We know it’s always tough to play there because they are aggressive, but we also knew the situation at the time. We didn’t have a healthy squad, and we even had several players who only had a 20% chance of playing, but they had to play. This time, it will be completely different, and we have a healthy squad.”

In that match in May, Manchester United’s defenders Maguire, Lindelof, Varane, Lisandro Martinez, Luke Shaw, and Malacia were all absent due to injury. Ten Hag had to let Casemiro play as a central defender. Evans was unwell before the game but still had to play despite his minor injury. Ten Hag pointed out that after getting rid of the injury crisis, Manchester United will play a completely different game: “Since February, we have had to ‘search’ for 11 players who can start every game. Now, we have 18 players, and we can ‘select’ the starting 11!”