‘Old Trafford is not for useless player like Him yet The Hag keeps believing in Him’: Paul Scholes Says one player is damaging Manchester United structure and need to be put in place
Manchester United legend Paul Scholes has criticised Bruno Fernandes for being ‘all over the place’ in midfield against Newcastle United.
There has been plenty of competition, but United’s display at Newcastle United may just be the worst of the season.
That might be recency bias as Saturday’s horror show is still fresh in our minds but this was a nightmare display.
Anthony Gordon scored the only goal of the game, but Newcastle could have been out of sight by half time having cut through a dismal United side.
Results can go either way but the manner of the performance and some of the terrible body language on show was a major concern.
Paul Scholes criticises Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes
There has been plenty of criticism for Marcus Rashford but Paul Scholes has looked elsewhere by focusing on Bruno Fernandes.
Scholes told Premier League Productions that he felt Fernandes was ‘all over the place’ against Newcastle.
Scholes believes that Fernandes is trying to do too much right now and almost trying to be like Roy of the Rovers.
The former United midfielder feels Fernandes popping up all over the pitch is hurting United’s team structure and talked about how it’s hard to build play as it’s unclear just where Fernandes will be at any given time.
Scholes feels that Fernandes should also be trying to get other players in position, as Kobbie Mainoo needs more discipline around him in midfield.
The pundit added that maybe Erik ten Hag is telling United to play in this manner, but Scholes saw a huge gap in terms of positional discipline between Newcastle and United on Saturday.
“We go back to leadership with Manchester United,” said Scholes. “That’s our captain, Bruno – he’s all over the place, absolutely all over the football pitch, playing anywhere that he probably shouldn’t be. He’s the one as well, getting people in their positions – McTominay, he’s off everywhere as well. You’re playing away at Newcastle, a very tough game, play with discipline, play with team management.”
“He’s got a young lad coming into midfield, Kobbie Mainoo, who did okay, but he needs people next to him, he needs held next to him. You can’t just go flying off and being indisciplined. At some point, you will get your chances, but play with discipline first.”
“He possibly is trying to almost be a Roy of the Rovers character, he’s trying to be everywhere, he’s trying to help everywhere but sometimes on a football pitch you can run too much. You can do too much, you can be in too many areas of the field. I think it’s messing the whole team structure up.
“I can imagine playing with him in central midfield and I wouldn’t know where he was – where is he? Where is he? You would have to be telling him all the time ‘look, stay there, stay in the position’, It’s no good you being on the left hand side or the right hand side or going to get the ball off the centre halves, there his no pattern to your play and you don’t know where your players are.”
“You see Newcastle, every one of those players know where each other is. Is that coaching? I don’t know. Is it discipline from them, ill-discipline from Manchester United? When you know where people are, you wouldn’t understand how much of a difference that makes to your football team.
“When I played, I knew who was next to me, I knew who the wide players were, I didn’t even have to look.
“In this team they’re just so disjointed, so all over the place, and it happens that many times that you have to wonder what is the manager giving to them? Does he like it like that? He can’t possibly like it with the way they played tonight,” he added.
Ten Hag still seeking the right balance in Manchester United midfield
United’s midfield has seen so many different combinations this season and we are probably still none the wiser on the best setup.
Bruno started alongside Casemiro and Mason Mount in the opening stages of the season but Casemiro has been missing for large parts of the campaign and Mount hasn’t yet got going in a United shirt.
The same goes for fellow summer signing Sofyan Amrabat whilst Christian Eriksen has been in and out of the team but is now injured.
Mainoo is showing real potential but is still only a kid whilst we have surely seen enough to realise that Scott McTominay isn’t a holding player.
All of that means that United’s midfield has had no consistency or chemistry this season with Bruno pretty much the only constant.
We can understand why the United captain may feel that he has to be everywhere, especially amid criticism of his captaincy credentials, but Ten Hag’s men were far too easy to play against last night and that just can’t continue.
