PROBLEMS

Erik needs much more than Brailsford's marginal gains

- Andy Dunn

IN A NOD to the New Year’s Honours List, two long-standing knights of the realm sat side-byside here in the directors’ box. 

Sirs Alex Ferguson and Dave Brailsford did not engage in too much chat but you can guess how it might have gone.

“Are you the marginal gains man?”

“Yep.” 

“I don’t suppose that you know a substantial gains man?”

That is what United need and the doubts on whether or not Erik ten Hag can provide those gains become more compelling every time his team post performances as lamentable as this.

Huge credit goes to a ferociously committed Forest and their recently appointed boss Nuno Espirito Santo.

To find a way to win after the pain of conceding a soft, late-ish equaliser bodes well for the rest of the season.

He has inherited a collection of highenergy players whose technical levels are not quite there but he is already getting a very decent tune out of them.