Peter Schmeichel has criticised Erik ten Hag’s decision to replace Rasmus Hojlund with Anthony Martial and feels the Frenchman’s lack of work rate proved costly in Manchester United’s 3-3 draw with Galatasaray.
The Red Devils secured an early two-goal lead in Istanbul with goals from Alejandro Garnacho and Bruno Fernandes. However, Andre Onana’s lapse against Hakim Ziyech’s free-kick narrowed the gap. Despite Scott McTominay extending United’s lead, another Onana error from a Ziyech free-kick and Kerem Akturkoglu’s powerful strike equalized the scores.
Peter Schmeichel criticized Onana’s mistakes but also highlighted the game-changing impact of Ten Hag substituting Hojlund for Martial, noting the latter’s lack of pressing allowed Galatasaray to seize the initiative.
‘I actually think that the back four played really well today. I don’t think they could have done much more,’ Schmeichel told CBS Sports.
‘I thought they played well, but, again, you can’t argue that the mistakes by the goalkeeper are very, very expensive.
‘Every time a goalkeeper makes a mistake it is a goal, it’s a fact of life.
‘I think again, when you go back to Sunday, I thought everything worked really, really well. But when you play at this level, every little mistake you make is being penalised and you’ve got to learn that.
‘When you’re 2-0 up – and it’s not the first time we’re 2-0 up in this tournament – you kill the game. You make sure the other team can’t get into it.
‘You keep the ball, you make sure you don’t make mistakes – and a lot of mistakes were made today.
‘And of course you also have to look at players like when Hojlund came off, a lot of the pressure from the very, very front disappeared.
‘The guy he [Ten Hag] put in doesn’t do anything, where you had before someone who works really, really hard for the team up front all of a sudden you don’t have that pressure.
‘And that gives the other team a lot of opportunities to pass the ball around.
‘So there are many, many things you can look at, but, again, if you score this amount of goals you expect to have more than one point.’