Three things we learned as Manchester United are held by Burnley in frustrating 1-1 draw | OneFootball

Manchester United hosted Vincent Kompany’s Burnley at Old Trafford as they looked to build on their midweek win against Sheffield United.

Erik ten Hag made no personnel changes from the side that beat the Blades a few days ago. Andre Onana started in goal with a defensive four of Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Casemiro, Harry Maguire and Diogo Dalot in front of him.

In midfield, Ten Hag gave the nod to Kobbie Mainoo, Christian Eriksen and Bruno Fernandes. Rasmus Hojlund led the line with Alejandro Garnacho and Antony on either side of him. Here are three things we learned from Manchester United’s 1-1 draw against Burnley.

Onana fantastic in the first half

Onana was undoubtedly United’s best player in the opening 45 minutes. The Red Devils started well and fashioned multiple clear-cut opportunities, which they failed to bury – a very familiar pattern this season.

As the game progressed, Burnley slowly got into their rhythm, as witnessed by how well they moved the ball and strung passes together. The Clarets made very threatening overtures into Onana’s goal and luckily for United, the Cameroonian was in great form.

Just 20 seconds in, Onana made a great save to stop a shot from David Datro Fofana.

The United goalkeeper was again called into action when Leyle Foster fired a powerful effort towards him. He dived and got a strong hand to it to deny Kompany’s men the chance to take the lead.

Foster was thwarted by Onana once again, this time just before the break. He was put through on goal and easily beat Maguire to come up one-on-one against Onana. The United summer signing quickly rushed out of his goal, made himself big and came up with yet another important stop.

If it wasn’t for the 28-year-old, United may have headed down the tunnel one or two goals down, although they themselves missed many chances to shed first blood.

Onana had a horrible start to life at Old Trafford but it’s almost safe to say that he has now turned a corner and is showing why Ten Hag forked out so much money to secure his services from Inter Milan.

Over the last few weeks, Onana has been one of United’s better performers and against Burnley, he stood up to be counted again.

Questionable in-game management by Ten Hag

One thing that was very noticeable in the game was Ten Hag’s questionable in-game management. Even as the Clarets grew into the game, the United boss didn’t really adapt to their growing dominance and stuck with the same game plan that clearly wasn’t yielding results.

The consequences of his reluctance to switch things up saw Burnley get more joy as the match carried on.

Even more puzzling was Ten Hag’s first round of personnel changes. On yet another occasion, Antony did next to nothing on the pitch and contributed very little. Even the fact that the Brazilian started ahead of Amad Diallo was not very welcome by some fans, who feel that the Ivorian deserves more playing time considering how poor Antony has been.

To the shock of many, when making his substitutions to break the deadlock, Ten Hag kept Antony on the pitch and instead elected to remove Hojlund. Ten Hag also took off Mainoo and replaced the 18-year-old with Scott McTominay.

The removal of Mainoo was surprising especially because Eriksen seemed like the one who was struggling and tiring.

Interestingly, Ten Hag’s decision to bring on Amad and McTominay in place of Hojlund and Mainoo drew some anger from the supporters, whose booing was audible. The Old Trafford faithful made no secret of their displeasure with the changes. The team may have been better served by ending the participation of Antony and Eriksen.

To accommodate the ineffective Antony, Ten Hag shifted Amad to a false nine with McTominay mostly playing in the natural centre-forward role. Fernandes was also forced to play deeper, which led to the Portuguese playmaker slowly fading away from proceedings.

United however got a big break in the 79th minute when Antony capitalised on a huge defensive error from Burnley to run at goal and guide the ball into the bottom-right corner. It was the 24-year-old’s first Premier League goal of the campaign.

The 20-time English champions were then hit back just minutes later when Zeki Amdouni converted his penalty from the spot-kick.

It was all-round poor management from Ten Hag who certainly made hard work of getting a share of the spoils against Burnley. It will do the Dutchman very little good in his bid to keep his job. Fortunately for him, his mistakes weren’t too harshly punished.

INEOS’ Ten Hag decision very easy

Since Sir Jim Ratcliffe completed his partial investment into the club, INEOS have been conducting a thorough audit of the club to identify possible areas of improvement.

One of the main decisions that needs to be made involves the future of Ten Hag – who has been under intense pressure all season because of the club’s poor performances and results.

It’s believed that no definitive decision has been made yet regarding the Dutch coach’s future. However, it’s very hard to see any merit in retaining Ten Hag any longer.

Against Burnley, a team battling to beat the drop, United made it a contest. The Reds would have been expected to dominate but it was a 50/50 affair and either team could have won it at the end of the day. In truth, this has been the theme of United’s season and ultimately, it’s Ten Hag who bears responsibility.

INEOS’ decision is an easy one and irrespective of what happens in the FA Cup final or in terms of qualification for Europe, a parting of ways with Ten Hag seems to be the best outcome.

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