Man Utd legend says club are paying price for failed summer recruitment strategy

Man Utd have suffered their worst start to a league campaign for 33 years, with former midfielder Paul Scholes blaming the club’s flawed summer recruitment strategy

Manchester United legend Paul Scholes has slammed his former club’s “criminal” recruitment after their worst start to a league campaign for more than three decades.

United have four points from as many league games and a goal difference of minus three, which represents their worst start since 1992, when the Premier League was launched.

Fallen giants United spent £236million on Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo, Benjamin Sesko, Diego Leon and Senne Lammens, but have shown no signs of significant progress, culminating in Sunday’s abject 3-0 derby defeat at local rivals Manchester City.

Amorim’s future hinges on United’s next three games before the second international break of the season, with Scholes blaming the club’s transfer strategy for the current crisis.

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“I don’t think the quality is there,” said Scholes. “Whatever two out of the four or five they have got in midfield – Casemiro, Bruno Fernandes, Kobbie Mainoo – whatever combination he seems to try doesn’t seem to work.

“That’s a big issue. I thought all summer the absolute priority was a centre midfield player with legs, who can play and can control a game.

“Goalkeeper was a major issue. Did they really need to get to the Grimsby game to realise Andre Onana is not good enough? If Manchester United were not in the market for Gianluigi Donnarumma when he became available, that’s a criminal offence.

“The recruitment side went to buy forwards. That did need addressing, but did it need three of them? I’m not sure it did.

“Mainoo came onto the scene a couple of years ago and I thought ‘Wow, what a player!’. I know of late his legs have been questioned a little bit, but the game [United’s 3-0 derby defeat to City] wasn’t about legs. United had plenty of possession.

“Fernandes can be fine in central midfield, as long as he’s got hold of the ball. When you’re playing against better teams, there are long spells when you’re not going to have the ball.

“That’s when you have to know that position brilliantly, because there are clever managers about these days, every one of them, and Pep Guardiola is the very best at getting people in behind the [opposition] midfield. He had Phil Foden doing it, he had Bernardo Silva doing it, he had Jeremy Doku coming in off the side.

“In that position – and I’ve been there myself, learning the position – you’re constantly looking over your shoulder – ‘where’s Foden? Where’s Doku? – and it’s a horrible place to be at times.

“If you’re on the ball all the time, Fernandes is perfect, absolutely brilliant. Mainoo is the same, I think, on the ball, he can be fantastic, but he needs a proper partner next to him.”

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Scholes, who won 11 Premier League titles and the Champions League twice in a 20-year career with United, also said Amorim has to change from his rigid 3-4-3 system.

“He can’t carry on playing this way, he just can’t,” Scholes told BBC Radio Five Live. “At some point there has to be a moment where he thinks ‘I have to change something because what I’m doing now is not working and I’m not getting results’. The proof is there.

“I like Amorim, with everything he says and he seems to be a likeable man. But unfortunately results paint a picture.

“At this moment in time it isn’t good enough. At this moment in time if results don’t improve, performances don’t really matter that much. He has to win some games or the pressure is going to come on him massively.”

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