Scholes rages at 'dead' stars, slams £43m signing and destroys Ten Hag for 'uncoached' side

Paul Scholes has cranked up the pressure on Erik ten Hag after claiming Manchester United look “uncoached” and having seriously called their transfer policy into question over the £43m summer signing of Matthijs de Ligt.

The Red Devils went into Sunday’s match at home to Tottenham in need of a morale-boosting result after a hugely underwhelming start to the season. Instead, Manchester United contrived to produce one of their worst displays in recent times as they were handed a resounding 3-0 defeat that leaves them closer to the relegation zone than the top four and with serious pressure cranking up on Erik ten Hag as a result.

Ten Hag himself insists he will continue to battle on, but one of United’s biggest critics – legendary former player Scholes – feels the performance on Sunday had the feel of a side who did not know what they were doing.

Speaking on SuperSport, Scholes said: “You don’t know how they’re going to play.

“You don’t know how they’re going approach games, whether they are going to play on the counter-attack or sit deep or whether they’re going to try to have all the possession in the game. We’ve no idea. They look like an uncoached football team.

“We’re two and a bit years in now… from the first week Ange Postecoglou went in, we probably knew what Tottenham were doing and they’re doing it to this day.

“We’re two and a bit years down the road [at United] and, as I said, it’s an uncoached team.

“The players looked dead today, they looked flat, they looked, ‘I don’t know what to do’, there’s no enthusiasm for the game of football and that can only come from the training pitch.”

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Scholes questions transfer policy as De Ligt signing is criticised

Scholes is also far from happy at United’s business this summer, where they brought in five new players, but with three of them coming in defence with Leny Yoro, Noussair Mazraoui and De Ligt all arriving for combined fees of £107.2m (€128.4m, $143.6m).

And Scholes feels the signing of De Ligt in particular was wholly unnecessary, suggesting he is no better than the man he replaces, Harry Maguire.

Scholes added: “When you bring players in, you expect them to be a lot better than who you’ve already got. I don’t see players coming in who are a big difference.

“De Ligt has come in for Maguire, let’s say, but there’s no big difference there.”

When asked whether De Ligt is an improvement on Maguire, Scholes replied: “No, absolutely not.”

Scholes also feels the rest of United’s big-money signings need to start proving their worth quickly, adding: “These are experienced players who United have paid a lot of money for. We need to stop hearing excuses and get on that training pitch and find a way of playing.

“Find something, give us something!”

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Even before Sunday’s catastrophic result, we revealed that Ten Hag’s dismissal was now ‘just a matter of time’ with United already looking into some potential replacements.

And with Gary Lineker also delivering a damning verdict, Ten Hag will be sitting rather uncomfortably as he does his best to prepare his side for Thursday’s difficult Europa League trip to face FC Porto.

“It’s hard to see him actually turning this around now isn’t it? He must be under terrible pressure. Who knows what the owners think, you never really know,” Lineker asked on The Rest is Football podcast.

“We will see what happens in the next few days because there’s going to be some fallout from that particular performance.”

Gary Neville was also understandably raging after Sunday’s loss, branding them ‘an absolute disgrace’.

“That sums up Manchester United in the first half. They have been an absolute disgrace,” he said, live on Sky Sports.

“It’s one of the worst performances I have seen under Ten Hag. And that is saying something. It is really bad. “I know that David Moyes had some bad ones in the early days, so has Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer] along the way, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Ralf Rangnick, but that felt like one of those days today where they sank really low.

“Today has shocked me how low they’ve gone. It was a really bad one.”

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