Home » Gary Neville: Manchester United’s imbalance the root cause of poor form

Gary Neville: Manchester United’s imbalance the root cause of poor form

by Marwan Harraz
Gary Neville

Manchester United great Gary Neville has given his strong opinion on what’s going on with his former club and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

United have not been at their best all season long, leading to calls for the legendary Norwegian’s head after the shock 4-2 loss to Leicester City.

Neville has often offered support for his former teammate but this time was clear and sincere in his thoughts on the current situation.

According to the Mirror, the former right-back said: “The performances have been so shoddy all season, team performances, been some great goals but the overall performances have been, the units have been shoddy.

“It’s been scrappy and scruffy to watch, so when you play against a team that’s got an organisation to them, a methodology, you’re going to get pulled apart and that’s what happening.

“Manchester United at this moment in time are imbalanced and the performances are now getting what they deserve in terms of results and it needs to change.

“The performances need to be a lot better and today [at Leicester] it was no surprise.

“I think the performances over the season haven’t been good enough even if they’re winning against Newcastle – even when everyone was getting carried away it wasn’t good enough that day.

“Manchester United off the ball aren’t good enough.

“They’ve got this conundrum with [Paul] Pogba and [Bruno] Fernandes, they’ve got this conundrum with [Cristiano] Ronaldo and [Edinson] Cavani, conundrum with [Mason] Greenwood and [Marcus] Rashford and [Jadon] Sancho and you’ve got all these talented players into a unit, out of possession and those players strengths aren’t out of possession.

“The great players are able to do it both ways but those players are biased to the attacking side of the game, they just are.

“No they don’t [need more investment], what they need is to have the work ethic of [Manchester City’s] Bernardo Silva and Kevin de Bruyne, [Liverpool’s Roberto] Firmino and [Sadio] Mane, players who are world class, who work like absolute dogs every single game.

“I don’t see that at Manchester United with some of their talented players.

“When I think of the names I mentioned in that Manchester United team they don’t work as hard as Mane, Firmino, De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva so better players and works harder means you’re going to finish higher than them simple as that so you better start working as hard as they do.”

According to the Daily Star, Neville said: “The pressure will build on the manager, the pressure will build on the players. They won’t do anything with the manager.

“I think that ultimately the club are stable in that respect with what’s happened in the last 10 years. I think they recognise they’re going to go through these moments.

“They are integrating Sancho, Varane, Ronaldo – and I think they’ll see it through. But there is massive pressure, and it’s not coming by the way, it’s here.

“It was here before the international break and even more so today. And it’s not going to go away that.

“It should be there, it’s Manchester United and they spent a fortune, and they’ve got some of the best players in the world.”

Something Neville didn’t touch on and that fans feel strongly about is that the lack of cohesion or the reason why the performances have been so ‘shoddy’ is because of a lack of proper coaching.

Many supporters believe Solskjaer has made the incorrect call of leaving the training sessions in the hands of the likes of Michael Carrick and Keiran McKenna.

In fact, there have been calls for former coach Rene Meulensteen to return to the club as the experienced head amongst the younger Carrick and McKenna.

Although Manchester United do need to gel more, it seems whatever group of players play, their starting XI always looks out of shape and unbalanced.

This adds strength to the belief that there’s something going wrong at the training ground that Solskjaer really needs to resolve and it’s not just a case of working harder or putting one player in for another.

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