Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag said the club is moving in the "right direction" despite the defeat to Fulham and added that the "bigger picture looks very good" at the club.

Fulham won 2-1 at Old Trafford on Saturday in United's first game since official confirmation of Sir Jim Ratcliffe's purchase of a minority stake in the club.

- Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)

The result leaves Ten Hag's team eight points off the top four with 12 games left but the Dutch manager said he hopes Ratcliffe is looking beyond what is turning into a disastrous campaign.

"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."

Fulham needed a 97th-minute winner from Alex Iwobi to earn their first win at Old Trafford since 2003 after Harry Maguire's 89th-minute equaliser had cancelled out Calvin Bassey's opener midway through the second half.

Afterwards, Ten Hag was left to rue his growing injury list that now includes Luke Shaw and Rasmus Højlund. Casemiro started the game but was forced off in the second half because of a head injury.

"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."