Ruben Amorim’s side suffered a second successive defeat as they were beaten 3-2 at home to Nottingham Forest on Saturday night......Read The Full Article>>.....Read The Full Article>>
Amorim has frequently changed his starting lineups during his five games in charge and former United defender Neville suggested that the manager needs to decide on his first-choice team.
Neville indicated that Amorim should follow the lead of Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca, who has a more established starting lineup.
Speaking on NBC Sports, Neville said: ‘When you keep changing players and you keep changing your back three and you take five players off, you’re basically saying to all of them, because they’ve obviously been taken off at the start of the game, that you don’t trust them.
‘Ten Hag kept doing that a few weeks ago when he kept changing the back players, changing the midfield. All of a sudden you’ve got a completely different system, a completely different set of players on the pitch at the end of the game. You can never get consistency.’
‘It looked really scruffy. They looked a mess at the end United with no real shape. In the first half they weren’t brilliant but at least they had a shape to them.
‘Pick an XI that you think are the best. Almost give that XI the faith and trust. Maresca’s doing it now at Chelsea – he’s playing an XI on a Sunday or a Saturday and then he’s playing a different XI in midweek.
‘He’s sending some messages to the players that there’s stability here and this is what we’re going to do. When you change players all the time you’re just spinning plates and there’s no consistency. You need to build patterns together. You need to build that idea of what you are doing together.’
‘No good team is ever a good team without hard work. Manchester United are 13th in the league. Their running stats, their distance covered is 16th in the league. You don’t deserve anything if you’re being outrun every single week.’
Fellow former United defender Rio Ferdinand labelled the result against Forest a ‘shambles’.
Ex-United goalkeeper Tim Howard also criticised Amorim’s substitutions, which included making alterations in defence and withdrawing Bruno Fernandes.
Howard said: ‘This was tough. I just think what’s concerning, the substitutions for me, the like for like substitutions. Changing two of your back three in the 65th minute, there has to be other issues going on that need changing and fixing.
‘Sometimes you have to let players suffer a little bit. Bringing a player off almost lets them off the hook. You have ideas that you want to get across, let them play through it. It just shows what a long term project this is.
‘In 18 months’ time when I think United will start to be at their best, it won’t look anything like this. So many of these players won’t be there.’
Nikola Milenkovic gave Forest an early lead, with Rasmus Hojlund then equalising for United.
Goals from Morgan Gibbs-White and Chris Wood saw Forest take control of the game before Fernandes netted for United, but it wasn’t enough to avoid another loss.
