Paul Scholes was unambiguous in his assessment of Manchester United\u2019s summer recruitment following the 3\u20130 loss to Manchester City that left the club with a joint-worst start to a Premier League campaign. The former midfielder singled out midfield depth and the goalkeeper position as the principal failings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think the quality is there,\u201d Scholes said on Football Daily. \u201cWhatever two out of the four or five they have got in [midfield]\u2014Casemiro, Bruno [Fernandes], [Kobbie] Mainoo\u2014whatever combination he seems to try doesn\u2019t seem to work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a big issue. I thought all summer the absolute priority was a centre midfield player with legs, who can play and can control a game.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoalkeeper was [also] a major issue,\u201d Scholes continued. \u201cDid they really need to get to the Grimsby game to realise [Andr\u00e9] Onana is not good enough? If Manchester United were not in the market for Gianluigi Donnarumma when he became available, that is a criminal offence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe recruitment side went to buy forwards. That did need addressing, but did it need three of them? I\u2019m not sure it did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scholes also suggested external circumstances had given his criticisms additional weight, writing that Ruben Amorim\u2019s side had provided ammunition, and that the recent defeat to Manchester City had exposed the squad\u2019s weaknesses.<\/p>\n
Rio Ferdinand, watching the same derby, described the match as \u201cdepressing.\u201d His focus was the defensive display. \u201cDefensively, I thought that was the most concerning thing,\u201d he told his podcast. \u201cI\u2019ve been quite complimentary about the defenders and the way we\u2019ve defended it at times this season, but [during the match], I thought it was like a hot knife through butter. it was too easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way we allowed them to get in and get goals and get opportunities\u2014it was weak, it was powderpuff, it just lacked anything,\u201d Ferdinand grimly reflected.<\/p>\n
Both former players have been forthright in their judgement: Scholes on recruitment priorities and goalkeeper form, Ferdinand on defensive frailty. Their comments add to pressure on United to respond on the field and in the transfer market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scholes called United’s transfer business ‘criminal’, questioned midfield and goalkeeper choices…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2843,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,969],"tags":[436,342,939],"class_list":["post-2844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-andre-onana","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-casemiro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}