Ten Hag stays true to tradition
United travelled to West Ham without Ten Hag’s four first-choice centre-backs – Lisandro Martinez, Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof injured; Raphael Varane ill.
It called for United’s 10th different centre-back partnership this season in 35-year-old Jonny Evans and 19-year-old debutant Willy Kambwala. Maybe a defeat was written in stone, but there is at least something to be proud of there.
The teenage Frenchman is the 252nd youth player to reach the Red Devils’ first team. Five academy graduates started the game, and another three were named on the bench.
Ten Hag has stayed true to the club’s proud traditions, and there has now been an academy player in a senior United squad for 4,234 consecutive games, an 86-year-long run stretching back to October 1937.
