Erik ten Hag hails Man Utd youngsters' performance in Athletic Club draw

Erik ten Hag has hailed the performance of Manchester United's young players following a 1-1 draw with Athletic Club in Dublin.

Man Utd earned a draw in their final pre-season game of the summer at the Aviva Stadium on Sunday thanks to a late strike from youngster Facundo Pellistri.

Pellistri was one of a number of young players who featured in the game, with the likes of Daniel Gore, Omari Forson, Hannibal Mejbri, Joe Hugill and Noam Emeran all also getting minutes against Athletic Club.

Speaking about the performance of said youngsters to MUTV, manager Ten Hag expressed his delight at the players taking their chance to impress in pre-season: “They deserve it [gamtime], otherwise we don’t line them up. Of course, when you start pre-season, we have to give them an opportunity but then they have to take it.

"They are brave and that is what I like. Be brave, play football and show yourself. If you want to play in the first team, you have to take responsibility in and out of possession and that’s what those guys are doing.

"I’m happy with their development. It’s games like this one, Dortmund, we had that game against Wrexham: it’s so valuable for their development for young players. From those games, they learn and improve a lot.”

The friendly was Man Utd's second of the weekend, with the Red Devils beating Lens 3-1 on Saturday at Old Trafford. When asked about the two-game weekend, Ten Hag said there were plenty of positives to take from both matches:

“In one weekend, two times we are losing but you see this team have character and that’s what you need in a season as well. Sometimes you are down and then you have to show resilience and especially in such moments you need determination.

"We have shown that this weekend, it was a good weekend for us. Yesterday I thought it was a very good level, today I have seen also very good spells. I think the start of the game was also very good and we should have scored a goal to go up, because it was a great chance from Jadon Sancho. We had some good moments after that as well and it was stupid how we went down but as I said, we had a result and we came back so it was a good weekend for us.”

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