The pressure on Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim is near breaking point after his side lost 3-1 to Brentford at the weekend.
Despite reports that the United hierarchy are still backing the Portuguese, results and performances must improve dramatically and immediately.
This view was put forward by United legend Gary Neville, who told NBC Sports that he is “really really worried” about the situation at Old Trafford.
“Unforgivable”
Neville said: “I’m very worried, there’s no point in me sitting here and saying that I’m not. I think the levels of performance, the results, the substitutions.”
With lots of cause for concern, the former United full-back honed in on one particular problem involving an out-of-position star.
“Yesterday [against Brentford], I saw something at the end of the Grimsby game that they lost in the Carabao Cup a couple of weeks ago, which was Mason Mount ending up at left-wing-back,” he said.
“We admire managers who are resilient, who are, if you like, stubborn around their system. We want them to stick to the plan.
“But, when you’ve got Mason Mount playing at left-back, you’re going to look pretty stupid. That’s happened twice now. It can’t happen.
“The first time, I thought, was unforgivable and yesterday it happened again.”
Regular tactic slammed
For Neville, the strange deployment of Mount is a manifestation of one of the worst aspects of Amorim’s game.
He explained: “He changes his back three and his back five every single game and the performances and results are just unacceptable. I’m really, really worried.”
Rio Ferdinand is among those former Red Devils to have already highlighted this as a problem, stating he would hated playing like that.
Neville stopped just short of calling for change in the United hotseat, but made it clear that the writing is on the wall for Amorim.
He said: “I would never go on television and say that a manager should be sacked but I suspect that the hierarchy at Manchester United are going to want to see a turnaround very quickly.”
Featured image Michael Regan via Getty Images
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Joe Ponting
Joe has spent more than half his life writing about football and all of it following United. As a child he told a doctor his name was ‘Paul Scholes’, but could never pick a pass like him no matter how much he tried.
