Palace punishes United's poor defensive performance

LONDON — A referee wore a camera for the first time in an English Premier League match as Crystal Palace beat up Manchester United 4-0 on Monday.

Footage from the device worn by Jarred Gillett, dubbed the RefCam, was not broadcast live, but will be wound into a program made by the league to show the ups and downs of refereeing at the highest level.

What it will also show is a closeup of United's woeful defending.

Defenders backed off Michael Olise and allowed him to stride forward unchallenged and score the opener after 13 minutes.

Jean-Philippe Mateta made it 2-0 five minutes before halftime, when he skinned Jonny Evans and hammered the ball into the roof of the net.

The United defense failed to deal with a ball into the box and Tyrick Mitchell slid in to poke home a third nearly an hour in.

The fourth came soon after, when Casemiro was dispossessed by Daniel Munoz, who cut the ball back for Olise to score his second.

It was a particularly rough day for Casemiro. United's captain for the match had two goals of his own chalked off.

The defeat left Erik Ten Hag's men languishing in eighth place, and at risk of both its worst ever Premier League finish and missing out on European competition next season.

Ten Hag took responsibility for Manchester United's miserable showing, but said he is still the right man to turn the club's fortunes around.

The Dutchman's future is in doubt, with structural changes ongoing at Old Trafford since British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe bought a minority stake and took sporting control of the club earlier this year.

"It's clear and it's obvious, this is under-performing," said Ten Hag. "We didn't play how we wanted to, and this is nowhere near good enough."

Ten Hag's options were again limited by a mounting injury list.

Captain Bruno Fernandes missed a club game through injury for the first time in his career, while England international duo Marcus Rashford and Harry Maguire were also absent.

The makeshift centerback pairing of Casemiro and Evans was torn apart by Palace's pace and invention.

"Absolutely," added Ten Hag, when asked whether believes he is the right man to lead United.

"If we have the right players available, we have a good squad. But, if we are missing almost our whole backline, then we have problems.

"I will keep fighting. I prepared the team in the best way I could. It was not good enough, so I have to take the responsibility for that, but I will find the energy and I will prepare them for Sunday."

The manager refused to lay the blame on Casemiro alone for the poor defensive display.

"You can't put it on one player, it is a team performance. We did not adapt to the different situations," Ten Hag said.

"There are always reasons. Everyone could see our backline today, where we had huge problems. But, at the end of the day we have to deal with these issues and we should have done better."

Worse could be to come for Ten Hag when title-chasing Arsenal visits Old Trafford at the weekend.

United has never failed to finish in the top seven in the Premier League era, and must do so or beat Manchester City in the FA Cup final to qualify for Europe.

The embarrassing scoreline at Selhurst Park is not unprecedented during Ten Hag's reign. United lost 4-0 at Brentford, 7-0 to Liverpool and 6-3 away to Manchester City during his first season in charge.

This season it has conceded 81 goals in all competitions, the club's worst tally since 1976-77.

After disappointing early exits from both the Champions League and League Cup, a deep FA Cup run has offered Ten Hag some relief.

But, it only just booked its place in a second consecutive final by surviving a penalty shootout against second-tier Coventry, after blowing a three-goal lead.

"That was tough to watch," said former United midfielder Paul Scholes of United's display at Palace. "That could have been 7-0."

Ratcliffe's INEOS group has already begun making appointments it hopes will turn around a decade of decline at the 20-time English champion.

Jason Wilcox has been named the club's new technical director, while Newcastle's Dan Ashworth has been targeted as sporting director and former Manchester City executive Omar Berrada will take over as CEO.

Agencies