Gary Neville could not believe what he saw from Man United in their dismal 1-1 draw against Brentford at the weekend.
Speaking on his Sky Sports podcast about the game, he said: “I watched Man Utd at Brentford and like everyone else, I couldn't believe what I was watching.
“I thought they would put a bit of pressure on Tottenham and Aston Villa on the run-in. It's actually really difficult to play that badly. Usually, whatever team you play against, even if you are a top team, the other team will have five or 10 minutes of play or a period of domination.
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“I can't remember any point in the game where Man Utd did anything well at all. It was a horrible performance. [Aston Villa and Tottenham] will drop points but if you look at United's level of performance, you just think that not only will they struggle to get into that fifth or fourth spot, they don't deserve to at this moment in time with what we are seeing.
“You know you can play badly in football, you know you can have players missing, you know you can miss chances and you know sometimes you don't feel quite right, but that was a dismal, dismal effort in an attempt to play football, in an attempt to work as hard as you possibly can.
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“When Man Utd give the ball away their reaction to giving the ball away is non-existent compared to all the other teams I see. They really are one of the worst teams you can see out of possession in terms of making it difficult for the other team.
“What we saw from Arsenal at Man City, and you see the levels of defending, compactness and the work ethic of all the front players to be a cohesive unit and defend together, there's none of that at United.
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“I'm not saying the defenders or the midfield players are blameless because they can do a lot better themselves as well, but there's not a unity at all. There's no idea of how to defend and how to play without the ball.
“You think about where Man Utd were at before the international break, they had one of the most incredible moments [against Liverpool]. They should've been absolutely bouncing into that game at Brentford and yet, we saw what we saw.”
There really isn’t much to debate with Neville in this aspect. Man United have been poor out of possession in Premier League matches this season and were especially poor in that aspect against Brentford.
The Red Devils are now 11 points away from the Premier League top-4 and Erik ten Hag needs a miracle to qualify for the Champions League next season.
