Manchester United’s 1-0 loss at Brighton & Hove Albion last night was such an awful display that club legend, and television pundit Gary Neville delivered what was perhaps his most scathing critique of his former club ever.
That’s a very high bar to achieve given just how scathing so many of his past critiques have been. This episode was different however as Neville believes Friday night’s disaster might mean the last hurrah at Old Trafford for some of the fringe players. Given how much Jose Mourinho blasted some of his bit players after the game, Neville said that some of them will likely soon become former United players.
The member of the Class of ’92 says the United boss has now run out of patience with certain members of his squad. It’s difficult to say with absolute certainty who’s out, but after last night’s showing, and multiple past reports, it seems highly unlikely that Matteo Darmian returns.
“It felt to me like it was a final straw for him with some of the players. The trust that you need with players had gone,” Neville told Sky Sports.
“I never thought at half-time that Manchester United would come out in the second half and repeat their first-half performance, but they did. In fact Brighton’s best period was 20 minutes after half-time. Mourinho said it was important to him that four points were achieved to finish second and he couldn’t convey that to his players.”
Neville says that he anticipates some changes this summer transfer window, and he of course really poured it on when slamming the team’s complete no show last night.
“When you can’t get your message into your players then either the manager has to go or the players have to go,” Neville added.
“At this moment in time Manchester United are not going to lose Jose Mourinho, so he’s going to make some big changes in that dressing room.
“It was so bad, so bad. I haven’t got words for it. I said during commentary that I felt if there’s any player who wondered why he wasn’t playing in the cup final, you can just show them this video
“They’ve got no excuse. It wasn’t the fact that they played badly, it was that their attitude was terrible. It was awful.”
United could have all but clinched runners-up in the league this season with a win, but now need to take four points from their remaining matches against West Ham United and Watford; provided Liverpool don’t drop any more points.
Mourinho maintains that it’s “important” to finish second to a historically great Manchester City side, but he doesn’t feel that his players share this same sense of urgency.
“I didn’t succeed in persuading my players that the four points we need to finish second are very important,” Mourinho continued.
“For me it is, but for some of my players it doesn’t look like it’s very important. Probably we are not as good individually as people think we are and I keep saying if we manage to finish second it is great. More than great.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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