Scholes takes Man Utd blame off Lingard and fires aim squarely at Solskjaer error

Paul Scholes, BT Sport pundit

Paul Scholes feels that manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s tactics did not help Manchester United in their 2-1 defeat to Young Boys.

The Red Devils got their Champions League group stage campaign off to the worst possible start on Tuesday. Despite taking the lead through Cristiano Ronaldo, Aaron Wan-Bissaka then saw red.

The loss of a man subsequently changed the game, with Swiss side Young Boys equalising after 66 minutes.

But things would go from bad to worse for United. Substitute Jesse Lingard, who had come on for Ronaldo, played a misfired back pass which Jordan Siebatcheu pounced upon to score.

Lingard was the third substitution of five made by Solskjaer on the night. Elsewhere, Jadon Sancho came off for Diogo Dalot following Wan-Bissaka’s red.

Raphael Varane replaced Donny van de Beek, while Nemanja Matic and Anthony Martial came on later on. According to Scholes, though, Solskjaer should have brought Martial into the game earlier than the 89th minute.

“It’s not a complete disaster. Not ideal, obviously you’d like to go away and win,” the pundit told BT Sport.

“Jesse will be disappointed, it all stems from the sending off in the first half. United were quite comfortable up until that point.

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“I do think United probably missed a trick, they couldn’t get out their half they were so deep.

“I think he should’ve brought more pace on earlier in Martial or [Mason] Greenwood, they didn’t do that and they’ve paid the ultimate price.”

This is not United’s first experience of this kind in their recent European memory, though. They lost in a similar fashion to Istanbul Basaksehir in the Champions League last season.

On that occasion, they were done firstly by Demba Ba’s bizarre breakaway goal and then lost 2-1.

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“It’s Basaksheir all over again. We were here last season and rueing mistakes,” Rio Ferdinand added.

“That’s a big mistake at the end of the game from Jesse who done really well at the weekend. [It] just goes to show wherever you go in Europe it’s tough.

“You have to be on your game. You have to be mentally tuned in.

“Yeah, they started well and a decision in the game can change it. It was a bad touch, a bad tackle then the game turned on its head totally.”

Man Utd return to action on Sunday when facing West Ham in London.


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