Scholes hammers De Gea; Ferdinand claims Man Utd got what they deserved

David De Gea, Manchester United keeper

Paul Scholes criticised David De Gea following his poor performance in Manchester United’s penalty shootout defeat to Villarreal in the Europa League final on Wednesday evening.

The Red Devils and the LaLiga oufit played out a 1-1 draw in Gdansk and after an uneventful extra-time period the game went to spot-kicks. Every outfield United player found the net with their penalty before Villarreal goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli put the Spanish side in front. De Gea then stepped up but his poor effort was comfortably saved to hand the underdogs victory.

De Gea has not saved a penalty for United in more than five years. And he looked unconvincing once again during the shootout.

And Scholes believes the Spaniard’s poor record with penalties was already a potential factor before the game.

“Once you get to penalties anything can happen, we know that,” legendary United midfielder Scholes told BT Sport.

“I always feel a little bit worried being an Englishman that we’d be on the wrong side of it.

“But the penalties, you have to say… David… we spoke about his record before it, he didn’t look like saving a penalty. They [United] got a little bit lucky with Luke Shaw’s penalty as well.”


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Man Utd just not good enough

Former United defender Rio Ferdinand added: “If you’re going to be brutally honest, Man United were not good enough on the night.

Villarreal Europa League win TEAMtalk

“Villarreal were more comfortable doing it like that, they’d have been happy getting to penalties like that.”

Scholes then replied:”‘That’s what underdogs do, they don’t make it easy, nothing’s really expected of them.

“It can be easy, sit on the edge of your box and defend. But United again, with the quality they’ve got, finishing second in the Premier League, the quality they have up front, but they [Villarreal] just stopped it, defensively they were brilliant. [Unai] Emery got it right.”

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