Gary Neville is right when he says Manchester United are “a train off the track” at the moment, but he is standing by what he said on Saturday that the club won’t sack Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
The former United defender doesn’t doubt that the players are putting a shift in, but he has big fears for the upcoming three away matches which come after the international break. That will be United’s next chance to turn this around and time will tell if the Glazers continue backing the Norwegian at that point.
“I think these players care,” Gary Neville said on his podcast with Martin Tyler, as per Sky Sports. “I want to make that point; there were times a few years ago where I left Old Trafford thinking: ‘Are these players really with us?’ But with these players, I don’t think it’s a lack of effort or willingness or want. I think those players want to do well, and want to be at Manchester United, every single one of them. But they look like they are suffering badly at this moment in time.
“I think the club will put Saturday down to Pep Guardiola, Manchester City, and believe that this could happen to any team in any season.
“They’ve got Watford away, Villarreal away and then Chelsea away. That’s a horrid, horrid week. This is not going to get any easier in the short term.
“The social media noise is different to the noise in the stadium. They were shouting against Nuno in the Spurs stadium last week; that won’t happen here with Ole at Old Trafford. We didn’t hear that with Jose, with Van Gaal, with Moyes, or even with Ron Atkinson 35 years ago. The fans here don’t do that, they are respectful of the situation, but this is a train off the track at the moment.
“Last season, people said second in the league is progression, it’s now not progression. That has to change very quickly. Against big teams, they look desperately short, and they shouldn’t. That’s where the manager comes under enormous pressure, and questions are asked, and on social media the pressure will be hot, but the contingent on social media are very different to the fans in the stadium itself.
“The contingent on social media don’t have the sympathy, the empathy, the compassion that the fans in the stadium have. But the fans walked out towards the end of Saturday’s game, because they knew it wasn’t right.
“The club have not prepared for this, not prepared for a new manager, they didn’t expect it, they thought everything was sort of plain sailing along.
“They’ve planned around a structure of way of working in the last two or three years that they’re not going to veer away from, but in this moment in time they’re going to have to put their helmets on if they’re going to defend it.
“Because the reality of it is it’s nowhere near good enough and you can’t defend it. They’ve only played a couple decent sides in Tottenham, Liverpool and City. They should have already had plenty of points in the bank to deal with that. It’s unacceptable with this squad.”
Those games see United face Watford, Villarreal and Chelsea — the next home match is against Arsenal on a Thursday night.
I wrote last night about how there would be no way back for Solskjaer if he loses the dressing room — and we all know it’s going to be an international break of stories and players being misquoted.
However, the bottom line is the dressing room can’t be happy right now. The stands at Old Trafford weren’t best pleased on Saturday as Man City bullied us off the pitch.
We’ll see against Watford how much the players care for our chances this season. I’m expecting a big turnaround before we take on league leaders Chelsea.
Neville,Schoh les,all the class of ’92’ are all hypocrites… Manchester United is falling and you are talking about sympathy just because it’s Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, but you all had no sympathy with LVG and Jose….. You all are British clowns.
Harsh – what does being British have to do with that?
Asking as a non-Brit.