Manchester United’s transfer business in recent seasons has been criticised and Paul Merson believes that former United captain Gary Neville could play a role at the club
Gary Neville should have been put in charge of Manchester United’s recruitment after the failures of recent transfer windows according to Paul Merson.
With speculation surrounding the future of United boss Erik ten Hag after a poor start to the season, the former Arsenal forward highlighted the failures off the pitch during the Dutchman’s tenure. The Red Devils saw a new recruitment team in charge of their most recent summer of business as Dan Ashworth was appointed sporting director, Jason Wilcox technical director and Omar Berrada as chief executive, under Sir Jim Ratcliffe.
The club spent signficantly in the wake of their arrival, though it has yet to boost results. United’s newest arrivals have enjoyed mixed results thus far.
Merson was particularly critical of an earlier signing in the shape of Antony from Ajax. The pundit conceded the club now must work patiently to return to football’s upper-echelons however.
“Man United are not going to catch up Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool in the next year,” Merson told Sky Sports. “You can’t spend £500m on players now. That can’t happen so they have to be patient. The only way of being patient is having a plan.
“The plan is going to take time. Man United have to walk before they can start running. And they definitely can’t start sprinting yet. This is what everyone thinks. The one thing that worries me more than anything, is who has come into that club that they’ve bought and you’ve though ‘he’s an amazing success’? I mean Antony was £80-odd million. That sums it all up.”
“I would have put someone like Gary Neville in charge of the recruitment,” Merson added. “Gary has been at that club all his career, and he knows football inside out.
“You put someone like him in charge, or Rio Ferdinand, someone like that or even both of them together, and you go ‘right, we want to build this club- what players should we be bringing in?’”
“The players they’ve been bringing in. I keep going back, £80m, who sanctioned that? I watched him in Holland, he goes down the wing, he cuts in and bends it in the far corner. He did it every week in Holland. You come to the Premier League and every single full back in the Premier League is an international full back. They work you out.”
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