Former Manchester United winger Nani says there are not enough leaders in the current squad.
This is something fans have discussed for some time and it was highlighted again recently when former manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer revealed that several players previously turned down the captaincy role.
Furthermore, the fans have been subjected to abysmal performances this season, and we can see that there’s a lack of leaders. There has also been a lot of injuries and Erik ten Hag is missing key players like Lisandro Martinez and Luke Shaw. Those injuries, along with Raphael Varane’s problematic track record in the treatment, have been a big blow for the manager.
United sit eight in the Premier League after a slow start to the season and we’ve been knocked out of the Carabao Cup. To make matters worse, we may not make it out of the Champions League group phase.
Former United winger Nani has been speaking to journalist Pedro Pinto about watching United nowadays. He said: “When you watch Manchester [United] play, you see there is no spirit of sacrifice, there isn’t that determination, there isn’t a player who says, ‘We have to win! We have to run with the ball and put it in the back of the net.”
Nani não reconhece o Man United: "Não há espírito de sacrifício, não há aquela garra e não há aquele jogador líder" pic.twitter.com/awCgYleyy2
— B24 (@B24PT) November 1, 2023
Will eyes turn to Bruno Fernandes, if they haven’t already, since the players around him are crying out from leadership and that is one of his responsibilities as club captain.
United now face an uphill task to qualify for not only the knockout stages of the Champions League, but a top five finish will slip out of our hands unless there’s a drastic improvement on the pitch. The problem I have is I don’t see where the run of wins is going to come from.
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“ crying out for leadership ‘ ?
Don’t they know what they’re supposed to do?
I hate to say this, but I can’t see any improvement is likely.
Has ETH something up his sleeve he hasn’t yet tried?
If so, WHY hasn’t he tried it?
He needs to get inside the players’ heads and ask what they’re struggling with. Not mass meeting where players won’t speak out if they don’t agree with the general sentiment ( you need a Roy Keane for that ), but individually; maybe no more than ‘ what would you like to see change? ‘
We can lambast Glazers, recruitment et al as much as we like, fact remains we have sufficient quality in the squad to be far, far better than we are at present.