Manchester United
Premier League • England
‘No chance’ – Livid Paul Scholes names duo Man Utd made massive mistake in signing
Paul Scholes has torn a strip off Manchester United’s recruitment team and players, lambasting their decision to bring Cristiano Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani to Old Trafford.
In the wake of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s sacking, United were forced to go into a crucial Champions League game at Villarreal with Michael Carrick in caretaker charge. Indeed, United went into the game on the back of a wretched run of form. Their run of seven defeats in 13 games in all competitions ultimately seeing Solskjaer pay the price.
Speaking before the assignment in Spain, Scholes had some extremely tough words for Carrick, claiming he too should have been sacked.
However, his former teammate wasn’t the only one to fall victim to Scholes’ tongue-lashing. The pundit also let rip into United’s recruitment team. Indeed, his anger at them was for putting a trophy-chasing side’s hopes on veteran pair Cristiano Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani.
In a sense, his words did come back to haunt him. That’s after Ronaldo once again proved United’s saviour in the Champions League, this time scoring the vital opener at El Madrigal in a 2-0 win.
Speaking to BT Sport ahead of the match though, Scholes was clearly unimpressed.
“He (Carrick) could’ve left every single player out tonight. Not one of them deserves to be playing,” he said, as cited by the Manchester Evening News.
“You talk about recruitment, this is Manchester United. Our two best strikers are 36 and 34 (Ronaldo and Cavani). That’s embarrassing.
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“How that has happened I’ll never know. The strikers we have, you get to 30 (years old), you probably have to go.
“I never thought they’d win the league, but thought they’d be a lot better than this. A 36- and a 34-year-old? You’ve got no chance.”
Scholes also had questions over the quality of United’s squad, claiming a top-four finish will be tough for whoever comes in as manager.
He added: “There’s only so much a manager can do. These players are almost like kids still.
“We keep saying they’re good enough to win trophies they haven’t provided it any of them.
“We think we have quality and skill but until they win something it might not happen.”
Scholes feels Carrick was lucky to avoid Man Utd sack
Scholes, meanwhile, has explained why he felt Carrick should have left Old Trafford along with Solskjaer.
“It’s the same people running the team,” Scholes said. “It’s the same people given massive responsibility every week to put that team on the pitch.
“Arguably it’s more Kieran McKenna and Michael Carrick who’ve been preparing the team. Ole gave them that responsibility, so how that changes now I don’t know.
“Four weeks ago, that Liverpool game. That was the time we knew Ole was going to go, it was plainly obvious. So then the people above had to prepare the next manager and the next batch of staff.
“I’d be almost embarrassed being the staff now, after what happened to Ole. I think they all should have gone. They were part of Ole’s team. Ole trusted them each week to prepare the team – and they’ve let the club and players down as much as Ole has.”
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