Paul Scholes has hit out at new signing Matthijs de Ligt and insists Manchester United look ‘uncoached’ under Erik ten Hag.
United signed defender De Ligt for a fee of £43million from Bayern Munich this summer, with other arrivals including Joshua Zirkzee, Noussair Mazraoui and Manuel Ugarte.
However, former Red Devils midfielder Scholes doesn’t believe De Ligt is any better than Harry Maguire.
“When you bring players in, you expect them to be a lot better than who you’ve already got,” Scholes told SuperSport. “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 he felt the Holland international was an upgrade on Maguire, Scholes replied: “No, absolutely not.”
United fell to a 3-0 defeat to Tottenham at Old Trafford on Sunday, their third successive game without a win.
And ahead of a difficult week where United travel to Porto and Aston Villa, Scholes has laid the blame at the door of manager Ten Hag.
“You don’t know how they’re going to play,” he added.
“You don’t know how they’re going to 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.
“Some of the positions that people take up on the pitch, it’s just madness at times.”
United spent over £200m this summer - including defender Leny Yoro who is injured - and Scholes has challenged the new arrivals to turn things around.
“These are experienced players who United have paid a lot of money for,” he added.
“We need to stop hearing excuses and get on that training pitch and find a way of playing.
“Find something, give us something!”
