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Gary Neville feels for ‘victim’ of blundering Solskjaer tactics at Man Utd

Gary Neville has insisted that Jadon Sancho should not harbour the brunt of Manchester United criticism, which the team as a whole should instead face.

The Red Devils were looking to return from the international break to help end a rocky patch of form. Indeed, they had won only two of six matches coming into Saturday’s match against Leicester.

However, they made that two from seven as the Foxes ran out 4-2 winners at the King Power Stadium.

Leicester also ended Man Utd’s unbeaten away Premier League run dating back to January 2020 at Anfield.

The pressure has subsequently mounted on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer ahead of a tough run of fixtures. As for the tactics and players, Neville recently criticised the lack of “workhorses” out of possession for Man Utd.

Meanwhile, new £73million signing Jadon Sancho has yet to score and he has faced a lot of criticism.

According to Neville, though, he is a “victim” of the wider problems in manager Solskjaer’s team.

“Sancho at this moment, he’s a victim of the current performances of the team,” the pundit said (via Metro).

“You’d like a player like that to come into a settled unit and he’s just still finding his feet. I did think he played well in the last 20 minutes against Everton a couple of weeks ago. But he shouldn’t be the focus point of any criticism at this moment in time.”

Neville said that, despite Sancho’s transfer fee, his lack of goals remains a “distraction”.

He added that, to get the balance right, Solskjaer must make the likes of Sancho, Mason Greenwood, Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandes “work like they’ve never worked before”.

Neville has Van de Beek questions

Saturday’s defeat to Leicester came and went without Donny van de Beek making it off the bench again.

The Dutch midfielder remains stuck on 141 minutes for the season spread across three games in all competitions.

“Why’s Donny van de Beek not being given a chance?” Neville said.

“There’s something about that. He’s not been given a chance for 18 months so you’ve got to come to the conclusion that Ole didn’t sign him or he doesn’t fancy him.

“Neither is good for Donny van de Beek so I think he needs to go and play football somewhere.”

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