Erik ten Hag agrees with Sir Alex Ferguson over Man Utd fixture pile-up

Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has admitted he is relishing the intense schedule the first-team are currently experiencing in a nod to club legend Sir Alex Ferguson.

The Red Devils will play eight games in February and kicked off the month with a 2-0 win at home to Nottingham Forest in the second leg of their EFL Cup semi-final.

They host Crystal Palace on Saturday before back-to-back games against rivals Leeds. United will play Barcelona home and away in the Europa League knockout round play-off either side of a Premier League clash with Leicester, and round off the month against Newcastle in the EFL Cup final.

Ferguson famously insisted that he was fond of United playing every few days during their 1998/99 treble-winning season, and Ten Hag was asked if he agreed with the Scot's sentiment.

"Yeah, I think so, and that is the right approach not to get distracted by anything and keep the momentum going," the Dutchman said ahead of Palace's visit.

"We have that in our hands and we can influence that, our team performance and individual performance and that is our demand.

"We have to see [how the squad depth is]. We construct a squad and also invested in the summer. From that point on it's about developing a team and that has to come on the training ground and come in the matches that you develop your team.

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"That's the advantage of so many matches; that every time you can work on it and don't have to wait so long. If you have to cover many matches, you also have the chance to improve your matches and your game quite quickly and I think that's what we see in this moment.

"Of course, we need players to cover that because there is a limit on every player but I think we have a depth in our squad. Maybe not that far as other teams but that also has something to do with your approach to it and how you do your load management. If you do that right, I think we can go far.

"I don't prefer a huge squad but also that gives problems. In the front line until now we had some problems with quantity. Not in the quality but with the availability of the players. You definitely need numbers there if you want to cover all the games and you want to be successful."