Rio Ferdinand believes Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim would love to do away with half of his squad, with his side sitting 16th in the Premier League.
United have had a historically bad season, and since the Portuguese manager arrived from Sporting CP in March have won just six of their 25 league matches.
The Red Devils could still end the campaign with silverware and a spot in next season’s Champions League should they beat Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League final next week, but away from that competition things could hardly be worse.
And that bigger picture is what concerns Ferdinand, who claimed on his Rio Presents YouTube channel that the manager can’t possibly be happy with the players at his disposal.
“I think he looks around the dressing room and thinks ‘If I could wave a magic wand, in the next five years at least 50 per cent of this team wouldn’t be here’,” he said. “Because they’re not good enough and they’re not right for the way he wants to play.”
The assumption he makes is that Amorim will still be in the Old Trafford hotseat in five years’ time, as even though he is believed to be safe over the summer even if United lose the Europa League final he will need to turn things around quickly to retain the backing of the United hierarchy.
It’s backing he desperately needs going into the summer transfer window, where he will be looking for quality players capable of performing in a high-intensity 3-4-3 formation. But Ferdinand believes it will take more than just one round of recruitment to get the squad right.
He said: “I look at him and think that he needs, minimum, two good windows of getting rid of the ones he doesn’t require but also getting in players that he really needs.”
Champions League qualification would be a massive bonus for a summer revamp, not least because it should bring in around £80m for investment in the squad.
But the United legend thinks it will take more than sneaking into Europe’s most prestigious competition to make things right at Old Trafford.
He said: “There has to be a lot of things to go right for us to make a dramatic turn on this. He’s coaching the team to understand what he wants, which has led to him getting terrible results in the Premier League consistently.
“He needs to recruit dynamic athletes. I don’t want no mavericks, or players that are frilly and can do pirouettes. No, no, people that can run past and run over people as well.”
Ferdinand explained that these dynamic athletes need to be installed throughout the spine of the team, specifying centre-forward, central midfield and the heart of defence as particularly key positions.
Featured image Gareth Copley 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.
