Erik ten Hag had hoped his Manchester United group would kill off Nottingham Forest sooner than they did as they ran out 2-0 victors on the Metropolis Floor on Sunday.
Antony put the Purple Devils forward within the first-half, however United struggled to discover a well past Keylor Navas once more till Diogo Dalot grabbed a second within the 76th minute.
United ended the sport with an anticipated objectives fee (xG) of three.49, and finally secured three factors to leapfrog Newcastle United into third place within the Premier League.
“A stable efficiency. A effectively deserved win. The one criticism I might say, it needed to be increased, the rating. It needed to be 3-0 or 4-0. We missed loads of possibilities there,” Ten Hag informed Sky Sports activities after the sport.
“You need to rating and end and kill the sport within the early moments. That’s at all times vital. In large video games you don’t create so many possibilities, so you need to rating them.
“We’d like extra goalscorers and I’m proud of Antony. He scored a purpose, gave an help. His begin within the sport wasn’t that good… However after he got here into the sport and he was regularly a menace for the opponent.”
United had been with out high scorer Marcus Rashford by way of harm, in addition to defensive pair Raphael Varane and Lisandro Martinez after each suffered knocks in Thursday’s 2-2 Europa League quarter-final first leg draw with Sevilla.
So as to add to Ten Hag’s points, Marcel Sabitzer was pressured to tug out of the sport after being injured within the warm-up on Sunday, and was changed by Christian Eriksen.
It could have even been a profit for Ten Hag, with the midfield trio of Casemiro, Eriksen and Bruno Fernandes profitable 15 of their 17 matches began collectively on the membership, drawing the opposite two.
“Sabitzer got here off within the warm-up, he felt one thing. We determined to not take the chance, we are going to discover out tomorrow what it’s,” the Purple Devils’ supervisor defined to BBC Sport. “However when you have got Eriksen on the bench, it’s undoubtedly not an obstacle.
“Final week I had 9 match high defenders, now I’ve 4. We’d like all our gamers, we’re nonetheless in three competitions, we’d like all of the gamers to type a high group.”
Dalot celebrated with notable enthusiasm when he made it 2-0 after operating onto a cross from Antony and ending calmly, and he defined to the BBC: “It was a launch of feelings, greater than the purpose it was the second of the purpose, we would have liked it to be extra comfy.
“One-nil up with 10 minutes to go, it’s going to be a battle, so it got here on the proper second.”
