Gary Neville has accused a clutch of Manchester United’s most experienced players of not doing enough to to justify their positions in Ruben Amorim’s team.
The Red Devils have made significant progress over the course of the last month to the extent whereby Saturday’s 2-2 draw against Nottingham Forest was seen as a setback.
A run of three straight wins over Sunderland, Liverpool and Brighton suggested a corner had been turned, especially with summer recruits Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha to the fore.
United looked well placed to build on that momentum against Forest when they took a first half lead through Casemiro, but a dreadful start to the second half meant they were ultimately happy to secure a point thanks to Amad Diallo’s stunning equaliser.
Despite the recent encouraging signs, Neville fears familiar failings were on show at the City Ground and that a quartet of players needs to be doing more.
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‘I think your spine of a football team is critical,’ Neville told The Overlap and Betfair’s Stick to Cricket show.
‘When I first came into Man United, our spine was (Peter) Schmeichel, (Steve) Bruce, (Gary) Pallister, (Roy) Keane and (Eric) Cantona and so we were all scattered around it.
‘We literally were able to be cushioned by this unbelievably strong spine that delivered reliably every single week.
‘I think (Harry) Maguire and (Matthijs) de Ligt should be doing a lot better than they are.
‘You know, you look at the experience that those two have got.
‘De Ligt’s played a mountain of games at sort of different levels, the highest level.
‘Harry’s played so many times for England. You’ve got the midfield, Casemiro and Bruno have got massive experience.
‘Up front, they haven’t got the experience.
‘But to me, that spine of Bruno Fernandes, Casemiro, Maguire and De Ligt is ageing, but should be doing a lot better at holding it all together than they do.
‘That’s why I think Liverpool are good because they’ve got Alisson, (Virgil) van Dijk, they’ve got (Alexis) Mac Allister and (Ryan) Gravenberch in midfield and then they’ve got obviously the centre-forwards that they’ve got.’