Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Samuel Luckhurst

Erik ten Hag backs four Manchester United forwards amid Liverpool deal for Cody Gakpo

Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag outlined his faith in his first-choice attackers 24 hours after Liverpool agreed to sign PSV Eindhoven winger Cody Gakpo.

United held informal discussions with Gakpo's representative in the summer and he was touted as a possible mid-season addition following Cristiano Ronaldo's departure but Liverpool struck a £37million deal with PSV on Boxing Day.

Ten Hag has stressed he is keen to sign a striker in the January transfer window but was reluctant to be drawn on Gakpo specifically and instead highlighted the potential of United's front four of Bruno Fernandes, Antony, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial.

Read more: United player ratings vs Forest

The quartet started together for only the second time in the 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest at Old Trafford, where Rashford and Martial were on the scoresheet.

Rashford has 10 goals this season - double the amount he tallied for United last term - and Martial is on five. "I never spoke about that I have doubt about that on the counter side," Ten Hag said of the dependency on Rashford and Martial. "Before we played tonight together, we have Garnacho, we have Elanga, we have numbers as well, but those four didn't play two games together. I think only Everton.

"When we can play those front four often together there will be more routines and when we get more routines in we have more of a goalscoring threat and that is what you see tonight, we score three goals. I am quite happy with them.

"When you are critical - and I am - there is room for improvement because we should score more than three goals with the chances we create but I'm happy with creating all those chances.

"I'm not looking at other teams, I am looking at our team, I am convinced of the squad we have, the players in our team, they have the capabilities, individual and as a team to compete with all of those teams."

READ MORE:

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.