‘Alarm bells’ at Man Utd as Fabregas claims ‘at least they had a plan’ under Solskjaer

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was sacked by the Red Devils in November 2021

Cesc Fabregas has questioned Erik ten Hag’s tactics at Man Utd as he insists “at least you saw a plan” under previous boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

The Red Devils had a poor first half of the season with Ten Hag’s side finishing bottom of their Champions League group and struggling to find consistency in the Premier League.

But they have turned a corner in terms of results in the new year with Man Utd winning seven of their last nine matches in all competitions.

Man Utd are through to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup and in contention for Champions League qualification via the league – but they need to make up eight points on fourth-placed Aston Villa.

However, Jamie Carragher and other pundits have criticised their recent performances despite their good results and former Arsenal and Chelsea midfielder Fabregas thinks Ten Hag’s side lack a “plan”.

Speaking to the Planet Premier League podcast, Fabregas said: “I have to say, with Ole, there were some good big games. He used to have a structure, they had a plan. At least you saw a plan which was to defend well and have great breaks and counter-attacks.

“This is exactly what Man United don’t have at the moment, it’s not good to analyse only one game, but I have the perception Man City are still very strong but with Man United, I don’t have the perception that they are a solid team at the moment.

“Looking carefully at the counters that Fulham did to them and the way they were done, this makes the alarm bells go. It cannot happen that a top, top team gets done on counters so many times in one half or over 60 minutes.

“This shows they are lacking something, I don’t know if it’s a gameplan, I don’t know if it’s structure, I don’t know if it’s a message, but definitely if this happened to my team there would be a lot of alarm bells.”

Man Utd, who face Man City in the Manchester derby on Sunday, bounced back from their only defeat this year against Fulham by beating Nottingham Forest 1-0 in the FA Cup earlier this week and Ten Hag doesn’t share Fabregas’ view.

Ten Hag said: “From January on we were in a positive trend and we played very good games and were progressing. We weren’t perfect still, but you saw the potential and we were winning games.”