Man Utd hero Gary Neville disagrees with Paul Scholes over Ralf Rangnick – ‘Got to change’
Ralf Rangnick previews Man Utd's clash with Southampton
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Manchester United legend Gary Neville insists the players, not Ralf Rangnick or Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, are to blame for the club’s dire season so far. The Red Devils have endured a torrid campaign and, on Saturday, slipped to a disappointing 1-1 draw with Southampton. They’re now facing a huge fight to secure Champions League qualification, even if rivals West Ham and Tottenham failed to win over the weekend.
United were good for 45 minutes against Southampton, with Jadon Sancho particularly impressive as the youngster strides for consistency following his summer arrival from Borussia Dortmund.
Yet they toiled in the second half and ended up drawing after Che Adams struck for the visitors.
In the aftermath, United have been condemned again.
And while Scholes acknowledged the players weren’t good enough, he also took aim at Rangnick following the showdown at Old Trafford by saying he’s a ‘sporting director’ instead of a manager.
“That’s the feeling around the place [quiet inside Old Trafford] there’s a lack of interest now with how the season’s been,” he said speaking to BT Sport.
“It’s been a bad seven days, it’s really been a bad six or seven months, you think the season’s not been good enough.
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“The sacking of Ole was coming, we all knew that but we all felt that, where was the plan? There has to be a plan, there has to be an elite, top coach into the football club to revive the football club.
“It’s Manchester United, they should have the best of everything and to not have a plan and bring what is a sporting director, he’s coached a team two years out of the last 10.
“Don’t get me wrong, I like the man, he comes across well, but he’s looked like he’s lacked coaching in the last five or six years.”
Yet Neville has now gone on the attack.
He’s insisted it’s the squad who must take responsibility rather than Rangnick, who only took charge in December.
“It now gets to a point where you don’t feel it’s down to the manager anymore,” he said on the Gary Neville podcast.
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“Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer] was getting a lot of criticism at the start of the season and loses his job and it’s now being suggested that Ralf Rangnick isn’t good enough because he’s a sporting director and he’s not a coach.
“There’s a confidence issue but there’s also an issue of excuse mentality and of looking after themselves and not looking at the bigger picture which is creating a brilliant team and trying to get back up that league.
“Tottenham have lost for a third time and there are teams dropping points around them so they can still finish in fourth and they can still get into the Champions League but that would paper over the cracks at this moment in time.
“They’ve got a really big job to do, and they’re going to have to start doing it quickly.
“Last season I was really complimentary of the spirit and togetherness of the team.
“It wasn’t a successful season having lost the Europa League final on penalties but you felt in finishing second in the Premier League, the players were together.
“They were tight. They were a group of people that I started to like.
“I’m now going away from that again because I look at them on the pitch and there’s definitely a number of them who are lacking in confidence.
“There’s also a few of them who are not putting a shift in. The hard yards.
“That I can’t forgive because as a United fan all that you can ask is that they give their all on the pitch.
“At United, it looks lethargic and they don’t look like they have the quality to chase games. Something has got to change there very quickly.”
Neville also said every day ‘feels like a soap opera’ at his old side.
“Manchester United were terrible chasing the game and chasing a goal against Southampton,” he said. “They were giving fouls away, they were stopping the game. They were forcing it and crossing from poor areas.
“You can’t put your finger on one thing when you watch United nowadays.
“Every day feels like a soap opera. You hear the players want Mauricio Pochettino, then Cristiano Ronaldo’s going to leave. The last few weeks have been terrible in terms of off-the-pitch incidents.
“On the pitch, I saw Ralph Hasenhuttl’s quote after the game which I think is the biggest criticism you can have levelled at you as a sportsperson or an athlete – saying that you don’t work hard enough.
“He said essentially that not everyone mucks in when the reverse gears are put on.
“If I was a Manchester United player and had that said about me by a respected opposition manager, that would bite deep.”
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