Former Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes has hit out at the club’s recruitment in recent transfer windows, describing it as a “complete mess”.
United missed out on Champions League qualification last season despite spending big to attract the likes of Jadon Sancho, Raphael Varane and Cristiano Ronaldo to Old Trafford, and left it late to do their business this year.
Although Casemiro and Antony arrived shortly before the closure of the transfer window, United frustrated fans with a drawn-out, fruitless pursuit of Frenkie de Jong, while they failed to sign a striker amid uncertainty over Ronaldo’s future.
While a run of four consecutive wins has got Erik ten Hag’s men back on track after they lost their first two games of the Premier League campaign, Scholes believes something must change.
Recalling last year’s transfer activity while speaking to Gary Neville for the Overlap, Scholes said: “[In Sancho] you’ve got a young player you spent a lot of money on who, don’t get me wrong, did great in Germany but was unproven in the Premier League.
“Cristiano was proven, of course he was, but he was 36. Varane, I always think, ‘why would a club like Real Madrid let Varane go?’
“If you looked at him last season, he didn’t look right. I didn’t think it was a great transfer window.
“It’s been a complete mess. It looks like there’s nobody in charge of it. Nobody at the club is taking responsibility for it.
“It is [director of football] John Murtough? Is it the manager? I think they need to put someone in charge of recruitment. What will happen eventually is the manager will get blamed for it.”
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United began the campaign with humiliating defeats to Brighton and Hove Albion and Brentford before Ten Hag adopted a more pragmatic counter-attacking style, and Scholes believes that approach is necessary given the make-up of their squad.
“I think even with the new manager now, he’s stumbled across it,” Scholes said.”I think the Old Trafford crowd get nervous when the goalkeeper is trying to play it 1src yards to the centre-back.
“When you talk about a club with a philosophy, that’s not Manchester United, it’s Barcelona, it’s Manchester City now, it’s Ajax.
“I don’t know if the manager’s done it on purpose or just got lucky. After Brentford he realised, ‘I don’t really have the players to do that’. After the Brentford game, there was a change.”
