Manchester United defend reaction to Matthijs de Ligt head injury

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Erik ten Hag suggested Manchester United used the "injustice" of Ethan Pinnock's goal to fuel their comeback against Brentford.

Pinnock nodded Brentford ahead from a corner in the fifth minute of added time in the first half after Matthijs de Ligt was ordered to go off to have his head injury cleaned.

De Ligt had already gone off the pitch twice to have his head tended to by the United medical staff but blood was still visible when he prepared for Brentford's corner.

Ten Hag and Ruud van Nistelrooy were both booked for their protests and the United manager still felt referee Sam Barrott was wrong to tell De Ligt to head to the touchline as it was dry blood on his crown.

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"It was dry blood, so he was already treated for that injury," Ten Hag said. "Just dry blood. No one from us understood why he was sent off.

"I went over to Matthijs and he said, 'it's just dry blood so I have to come off, I don't know why'. It's a huge moment because Brentford is very good at corners when you miss a header and they benefit from it, you are disappointed.

"It is hypothetical, we will never know (if it instigated United's comeback). But definitely we were mad, we were angry at half-time. We had the idea, it was not perfect but we controlled the game. We didn’t concede chances, we created some chances and then it felt injustice when you concede like we did.

"He (De Ligt) was okay, that is what he told me. I asked him when he came off, is there a problem. No, he was 100 per cent there and not at any time was there a doubt to take him off."

Alejandro Garnacho equalised within two minutes of the restart and Rasmus Hojlund dinked in the winning goal on 62 minutes to lift United up to tenth in the Premier League table.

United have now won as many league games as they have lost, having gone 317 minutes without scoring in the league. Ten Hag remains adamant that goalscoring has been the team's only problem this term.

Hojlund has scored in two of his three starts since recovering from a hamstring injury he sustained in United's first game of their pre-season tour against Arsenal in Los Angeles.

"Every game you win is important," he reiterated. "Again, this team you see the togetherness, the fighting spirit and today we add some determination to score goals, that is what we need.

"The stats show we play good football, we come in the right spots but we don't score enough, we're not clinical enough but today we scored two brilliant goals and we're very pleased with it.

"Today the two goals we scored are high quality. We have seen this team has the capacity to score very good goals and when you score and win you add some belief, some confidence. That is what we needed.

"In the start of the season, we had some good performances. You see it also the clean sheets we had. We had enough chances but didn’t score enough and then everyone is negative, disappointed. It can help us but it is only one win and we have to build on this.

"Pressure is always there, we have to win every game and when you are 1-0 down, we have to see how we turn it around. We felt some injustice and we used this as fuel for the second half. We increased the tempo, scored two great goals. I really enjoyed the performance. Especially the second half.

"The last block (of games), we didn’t win enough but we only lost one game and that was when we were downsized to ten and afterwards everyone agreed that we shouldn’t have been downsized to ten.

"So the only thing we had to do was score goals. We were getting in the right spots, bringing the ball up there, get the right positions but were not clinical and determined enough. If we do this we will win games.

"What didn’t help was Rasmus Hojlund was injured at the start of the season but now he is back. We have enough players with scoring abilities and today we scored two great goals. Hopefully that gives confidence to the players that they can do it."

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