Matthijs de Ligt couldn't hide his frustration as he reflected on Man Utd's defeat to Everton in the Premier League.
De Ligt spoke after the game.(Image: MUTV)
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Matthijs de Ligt believes Manchester United lacked urgency against Everton on Monday, which he felt made it difficult for them to break down a team that "drops back" and is "really strong in the air".
United returned from the November international break undefeated in their last five games in the Premier League, but they suffered a shocking 1-0 defeat against 10-man Everton.
Although Idrissa Gana Gueye was sent off for slapping his own teammate, Michael Keane, in the 13th minute, Everton opened the scoring through Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall. United struggled to create many clear-cut chances as they looked to respond in the second half, and Everton comfortably dealt with crosses into the box.
Ruben Amorim admitted that United deserved to lose during his post-match press conference, and he added: "I feel afraid of returning this feeling of last season."
Speaking to MUTV, De Ligt was visibly disappointed as he reflected on the team's performance. “It’s quite clear, not good," he said. "Today was a bad night for us, especially with the way we played against 10 men. We conceded one goal, didn't create a lot of chances, so overall it was a really bad performance.
"It's frustrating, but that's football. The Premier League is not for the weak. One chance could be a goal and if they score after one chance and we don't, that makes a difference today.
"That's football, that's the difference between winning and losing, the efficiency. And today we lacked that, we lacked the urgency to score the goals, create the chances, and against a team like Everton, who drop back and are really strong in the air, it's going to be quite difficult.
"That basically sums up the night. I'm disappointed with today. The next game is really important now and we have to bounce back. We had some good performances in the last couple of weeks and now we had a bad one. We must come back, stay together and to make clear what has to be better."
Amorim said: "Frustration, disappointment about the way we played the game. They were the better team, with 11 they defend really well for 70 minutes with 10 men. I think we deserved to lose.
"We didn’t play well, we didn’t play with the right intensity. We talk about this a lot [about what went wrong], I know which point we are at the moment, I have that feeling during this run.
"We are not there, not even near the point we should be to fight for the best positions in the league. We need to be perfect to win games and we were not."
Asked whether some of his players did not show the intensity he wants, Amorim responded: "We need to find a way, I don’t like to say we can, we show and then it is one game by week.
"It is not back-to-back, so we need to be ready, 20 minutes in the game, red card for opponent, we need to win that, no matter what. We have a lot to do and we are going to do it."