31 July 2023 , 09:44
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Christian Eriksen has bemoaned the amount of travelling Manchester United were forced to do this pre-season after Erik ten Hag dubbed aspects of their most recent fixture "unforgivable."
The Denmark international was speaking after the Red Devils were beaten 3-2 by Bundesliga titans Borussia Dortmund in Las Vegas. Prior to that clash, United met Arsenal in New Jersey, Wrexham in San Diego and Real Madrid in Houston, clocking up a significant amount of mileage in the process.
The tour of the United States only saw one victory, which came against the Gunners. Three defeats soon followed and after the loss against Dortmund, Eriksen opened up on what he made of United's squad being forced to travel far and wide.
"I think it's been good. There's been a lot of games and too much travelling, to be honest," the midfielder told MUTV. "It's been nice to see all the fans and to give back to them. I think we played a strong game apart from the result."
Eriksen continued: "It's feeling easier going into the games [with better fitness levels], we're feeling more prepared. It feels good to be playing normal. We expected a tough pre-season, but for me, there's probably been too much travelling around.
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"Playing in different places but it has to happen. We've adapted and everyone is happy to go home, I think, but we enjoyed our time here. I think it's been good for me personally, it's about getting confident and minutes. I think the support has been incredible, we've tried to give something back by playing our football."
Christian Eriksen has admitted he felt Manchester United travelled too much (PA Media/Twitter)Mirror Football is now on Threads! You can follow us here.
Ten Hag seemed equally as frustrated post-match but opted to lay the blame with his players rather than the amount of travelling completed this tour. The United boss even went as far as to label features of the loss to Dortmund as "unforgivable."
"The last half an hour, it was bad, a poor performance. They didn't follow the rules at all, not in pressing, not in building up or when attacking. They were 11 individuals on the pitch.
"That wasn't good at all. I said to the team, I think it was a good tour, but you want to finish with a good performance and there was only 60 minutes that I was pleased with, but not with the goals we conceded because the first one was poor defending and the second one was poor in the build-up.
"That's not us, we have to keep control, keep responsibility on the ball and it was the same for the 3-2," he added. "That can't happen and it's unforgivable, even if it's a friendly."