Gary Neville slammed another “shoddy” effort after Manchester United’s disastrous 4-2 match score defeat at Leicester broke the club’s 29-game unbeaten run away from home. At King Power Stadium the Red Devils took an early lead with Mason Greenwood’s spectacular goal but the defensive flaws that have dogged United for months reared their ugly heads once more.
Despite the fact that it was United’s first road loss since New Year’s Day in 2020, Neville said after Chelsea’s win over Brentford that it was another performance that demonstrated the team’s complete lack of cohesiveness and organisation. “There are issues as their performance are nowhere near good enough,” Neville told Sky Sports football news.
“I said a few weeks ago that the moment where they started to play half-decent teams, they’re going to struggle. Aston Villa, Everton, Villarreal and Leicester are half decent teams. The performances have been so shoddy all season in terms of team performances. There’s been some good results and some great individual goals, but the overall performances and the unit in and out of possession have been shoddy”
“It’s scrappy and scruffy to watch. When you play a team with a clear organisation and a methodology, you’re going to get pulled apart and that’s what happened here. They were pulled apart by Villa, pulled apart by Everton and pulled apart by Villarreal. Neville also questioned United’s balance, implying that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s current crop of forwards simply don’t put in the effort required to warrant them all playing together.”
“We’ve seen a team picked today with Marcus Greenwood, Jadon Sancho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandes starting. Five of them, so I wouldn’t want to be a defender in that team,” Neville added. “I love them as players those five, but having them all in the same team there are not enough workhorses. There’s a reason that Darren Fletcher, John O’Shea, Nicky Butt, Tom Cleverley, Park Ji-sung and Owen Hargreaves got a game at United over the years.”
“We needed workhorses alongside the great players. Manchester United at this moment in time is imbalanced. The performances are now getting what they deserve in terms of the results. It needs to change. The performances need to be a lot better and today was no surprise.”
