Erik ten Hag has claimed it's impossible to make Manchester United play like his successful Ajax team, after reflecting on the Red Devils' bitter 3-0 defeat against rivals Manchester City.
Erling Haaland netted a brace for the Premier League champions before setting up Phil Foden for City's third, as Pep Guardiola's side won the Manchester bragging rights in style on Sunday.
And Ten Hag, who watched his side slip to eighth in the Premier League table at Old Trafford, has made a stunning confession in relation to his successful Ajax team which reached the Champions League semi-finals in 2019.
'We will never play the football we played at Ajax here,' he told ViaPlay after the defeat. 'I now have other players, that's not why I came here.'
'The player material you have determines how you will play. That's why we play here in a different way than I did at Ajax. That will have to be the case, because I can't play the same way here.
'That is not in the DNA of Manchester United at all. The football at Ajax is very typical, here we will play much more directly. We also have the players for that, especially at the forefront.'