Gary Neville has included Wales and current Leeds United winger Daniel James in Manchester United's 'red' transfers of the last 10 years.
United are currently experiencing a major lowpoint in their existence, with back-to-back defeats to Brighton and Brentford seeing them bottom of the Premier League with two games played.
Their decline since Sir Alex Ferguson's departure in 2013 has been steady but their nosedive in recent months has been shocking, especially in light of their transfer spend over the past near-decade, with £1.25billion splurged on new players.
READ MORE: Man Utd fans tear into Jadon Sancho and make same claim about Leeds United's Daniel James
During an in-depth analysis of United's struggles on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football, Neville graded United's 33 signings from before the current season, with green being seen as value for money, amber as OK value and red as poor value or not performed.
James, who United signed for £15million in the summer of 2019 from Swansea City, was placed in the latter category, despite having an instant impact at Old Trafford upon signing and often remained on the bench.
Twenty-four were graded red and just two players were placed in the green bracket - Bruno Fernandes and Zlatan Ibrahimovic - in a damning transfer verdict delivered by the former United defender.
"It’s been one of the problems Manchester United have had for 10 years is that they’ve flip-flopped from managers, strategies and they’ve allowed managers to control recruitment and that’s a massive issue," Neville said.
"We looked at the last 10 years of major signings at the club, £1.2bn has been spent and we categorised into green - have they provided value for money and have they performed for the club - have they done OK and been OK value or have they been poor value and not performed or one of the two.
"We think there’s only two signings at this moment in time that you can say have been good and performed at a decent level but you can argue that Fernandes has gone off the boil a little but the number that he hit in the last few seasons has worked. Ibrahimovic worked. Amber; Herrera, Shaw - we debated over Shaw - Matic, we debated over Juan Mata who is in red but could’ve been in amber, Cristiano Ronaldo - would’ve been green on last season but what’s happened in the last month in terms of he wants to leave, it’s a nightmare scenario, it’s not working.
"Seventy-five percent of those signings are in red, they’ve not worked, 20 per cent are an amber and only four (or) five percent of signings, we think, have worked. That is a horror story from a recruitment point of view. However, there’s a call for blaming the players and we’ve blamed the players over the years. I was excited about a lot of those signings as many people were, even last year with Varane, Sancho, Ronaldo.
"Di Maria came and we all went ooh he’ll be a good signing, we did it on Monday Night Football at Leicester when he went through midfield. But it’s become a graveyard for football players this football club where football players are now considering to even come to the club, they can’t get players in. I have to say where I got away from the players is that when a school is underperforming for years they get put under special measures by government and the kids don’t get blamed - that’s where Man United are. They’re in special measures and you can’t blame the kids anymore."
James made 50 appearances for United in a two-year period, scoring six goals for the club before being moved on to Leeds United in the summer of 2021 for a fee of around £25million.
The 24-year-old has found a home at Elland Road, appearing 31 times for the Whites and scoring four goals.
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