Ten Hag In Attendance As Manchester United Fortuitously Fall Into Europa League—-Former giants Manchester United will be playing Europa League football next season, not because of their prowess but the failure of West Ham United.
This is in spite of Wilfried Zaha scoring in a 1-0 win for Crystal Palace over the Red Devils on the final day of the 2021/2022 English Premier League (EPL) season.
Incoming Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag was in attendance at Selhurst Park as Zaha punished a languid first-half showing by Ralf Rangnick’s side to put Crystal Palace in front.
Manchester United, without the injured Cristiano Ronaldo, could not find a breakthrough in the second half as they fell to a sixth straight away league defeat.
However, West Ham were defeated by Brighton and Hove Albion on Sunday.
This kept Manchester United in sixth in spite of the Red Devils finishing the term with a club record-low Premier League points tally.
Edinson Cavani, playing in his final game for Manchester United, almost wrongfooted Vicente Guaita with a volley after 14 minutes, but the Spaniard readjusted to parry away.
David de Gea showed quick reflexes to thwart low drives from Zaha and Jeffrey Schlupp.
But the Manchester United goalkeeper had no response shortly after when the Côte d’Ivoire international drilled into the bottom-left corner.
Bruno Fernandes tamely curled a free-kick into Guaita’s hands after the interval, while Conor Gallagher dragged a presentable opportunity wide at the other end.
Anthony Elanga sliced wide from Juan Mata’s cutback as Manchester United searched for a late equaliser, although a belated offside flag against the Spaniard spared the Sweden international’s blushes.
Manchester United continued pressing forward but Crystal Palace held firm for a fifth consecutive top-flight home clean sheet for just the second time in history.
Rangnick was tasked with transforming Manchester United’s fortunes after the dismissal of club legend Ole Gunnar Solskjaer last November.
However, the German was unable to do so and leaves Manchester United with the lowest win rate of any Red Devils manager in Premier League history (41.7 percent — 10 wins from 24 games).
