Meulensteen: Ratcliffe must give Man Utd and Ten Hag clarity

Former Manchester United assistant coach Rene Meulensteen says the club needs "clarity" after last night's defeat at Crystal Palace.

United were hammered 4-0 on Monday night.

Meulensteen told BBC Sport: "Yes, it was a pretty awful night, it was not good viewing from a Manchester United point of view.

"If you look at the opposition, at Palace, they have a clear pattern and structure in their play. They know how they want to play and how to execute it, but there was none of that with United.

"There was no structure, but also no heart and no passion. And the worrying thing is that Erik ten Hag said they had a week to prepare for this game, so you set out a plan, your tactics, your defence - but all the players have a job to do whether that's in possession or out of possession.

"It is not just the players, everyone is accountable. Ten Hag is responsible for bringing a lot of those players, he's responsible for the system of play and the preparation. The players then have to respond to that but clearly somewhere it is disjointed.

"And he [Ten Hag] says after the game that they didn't follow their rules, and there's two reasons why that happens - either they don't want to or they can't, because they don't have that quality. So yeah, it is a tough situation

"Whereas Oliver Glasner is still quite new to Crystal Palace but look at what he has achieved in the space of just a few months. He has turned around a team that was quite lost but now they look so confident and that is not the case for United.

"He [Ten Hag] does still have a future at Old Trafford, if Jim Ratcliffe thinks he has a future then of course he does.

"But again, I'm just repeating myself all the time and we've spoken about this a lot. There has to be clarity, and the sooner the better. You're in a new transfer window with a lot of change, there's some new people in very important positions.

"And they have to devise the new direction that the club is going to take. Is that going to be with Erik Ten Hag? If it's a yes then great, but if it's a no then they have got to be clear about that, the direction they want and how they are going about it."