Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand did not hesitate to criticise Manchester United’s players after they lost 2-0 to bitter rivals Liverpool in the first leg of their Europa League tie at Anfield tonight.
Goals from Daniel Sturridge and Roberto Firmino will give United a mountain to climb when the two sides face each other again at Old Trafford in a week’s time, and a dismal performance tonight gave no indication that the Reds will be able to turn the deficit around.
And the former United men accused the current side of lacking the mentality, fight and quality required to play for the club on BT Sport following the game.
Scholes said:
United were a shambles. At 2-0, they’re still in the game but when you’re at Manchester United there are certain standards you have to live up to and they’re falling well short.
When we were coming through as players we had great examples in [Bryan] Robson, [Roy] Keane, [Paul] Ince, [Steve] Bruce setting standards and we had to live up to them and hopefully take the club on.
When me and Rio [Ferdinand] were playing we set standards for these players. The manager [Sir Alex Ferguson] set standards for David Moyes and Louis van Gaal and every single one of them are falling short of the standards that should be set.
Twitter: “United were a shambles!” @ManUtd legends @rioferdy5 and Scholes less than impressed with #MUFC. https://t.co/eKrdehDFsw (@btsportfootball)
For 20 years Manchester United had an identity. You were going to play fast football, you were going to pass the ball forward, tackle and run.
The last three years they’ve just gone away from something that worked. You look at the pitch tonight – what were they trying to do? I’ve absolutely no idea.
The first half was shocking, the second half they go back to the three at the back last season that was an absolute disaster. Tonight again it was a disaster.
You [should] bring Michael Carrick on to play centre-midfield, take the ball, be brave – which he can do – and pass the ball forward. He sticks him in the middle of a back three!
Ferdinand also had his say, and said that it was not easy sitting in the studio and watching that United performance:
It’s not easy sitting here to see the lack of fight, the lack of urgency, the lack of cohesion in the team.
There’s going to have to be massive improvement in the next leg at Old Trafford because that wasn’t good enough. There’s no excuses.
Sometimes you look at the manager et cetera but the players out on the pitch need to put in a performance and show some fight. Today we didn’t see that.
That’s one of the most disappointing things you can say about a performance sometimes is that it didn’t seem like we had the fight. The cohesion and the patterns of play were non-existent.
