Manchester United head coach Erik Ten Hag feels the club is moving in the right direction their 1-2 loss against Fulham at Old Trafford on Saturday. After a goalless first half, Calvin Bassey scored for the visitors in the 65th minute to put them in front.

Harry Maguire then equalized for the Red Devils in the 89th minute of the game. When it looked like both teams would share the spoils, Alex Iwobi scored in the stoppage time to give a thumping win to his team.

Meanwhile, Manchester United had 57% possession and took 21 shots, nine of which were on target. But in the end, they ended up on the wrong side of the result.

Ten Hag’s team had won their last four matches on the trot in the Premier League but their match-winning streak was snapped by Fulham.

“After one defeat you have to see the bigger picture, and the bigger picture looks very good,” Ten Hag said.

“We have to catch up in certain positions and get the injuries back, then we will be more in balance and also strengthen the squad in the transfer windows.

“You see there are many good players coming up and real high-potential players. They will be getting better, so definitely we are going in the right direction.”

Meanwhile, Luke Shaw and Rasmus Højlund missed the match due to their respective injuries. Furthermore, Casemiro started the match but suffered a head injury in the second half.

“So when we have the players available, we have a very good team,” Ten Hag said. “Today we could have won this game, even we should have won this game as the team showed great character. We had two slow starts in both halves, definitely.

“It was a big loss to lose Casemiro. We lost some stability in the team, then conceded a goal that is very avoidable and then fought back in the game. I have to credit the team, they showed great character. Then we went for the win but by the end we let them slip away.”

Manchester United will next face Nottm Forest in the 5th round of the FA Cup on Wednesday at the City Ground.