Paul Scholes called Manchester United a “poisonous disaster” and urged his former club to try to steal Antonio Conte from Tottenham in the summer.
United have endured a miserable 2021-22 campaign thus far, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer paying off the team’s poor start with his work and his interim replacement Ralf Rangnick also failed to bring out the best in an enigmatic group.
The Red Devils are now in real danger of finishing outside the top four and extending their trophy-free streak to five seasons, and Scholes can’t imagine the situation improving anytime soon.
What did Scholes say about Manchester United?
The former United midfielder, who made more than 700 appearances for the club between 1993 and 2013, said on the YouTube channel Webby and O’Neill: “The club feels like it’s in trouble, player-wise, personal. and coach. Who wants to join this club? It feels like a real disaster. It feels poisonous. “
Scholes didn’t finish, blaming the players for much of the current struggles. “There has to be a point where you think, ‘Are these players good enough?'” Scholes said. “We know [Cristiano] ronaldo, [Paul] pogba, [Raphael] Varane, [Nemanja] Matic has a lot of experience and won trophies, but the rest of the team has not proven to be good enough to win anything.
“Some of these players have had a lot of games now. Marcus Rashford, he’s had a lot of games, will we ever see these guys reach their potential? Will they be good enough to win trophies? [Harry] Maguire, is it good enough? [Victor] Lindelof, is it good enough? We keep saying how good they are, but they are not giving what is required in the field ”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEh-17LAvZk
Scholes prefers Conte to Rangnick
Scholes later questioned Rangnick’s suitability for the highest position at Old Trafford, and the former RB Leipzig and Schalke manager was deemed lacking experience at the highest level of the game.
“We have gone to a man who is highly regarded throughout Europe, especially by managers who speak highly of him as [Jurgen] klopp and [Thomas] Tuchel, ”he said about the German tactician. “But he has not been very successful as a coach. He won promotion in Germany and a little bit with Schalke, but they have asked him to come and run the biggest club in the world, it’s something I just can’t understand. “
The former Red Devils midfielder is not wrong. Rangnick had a successful 2010/11 season with Schalke, winning the DFB-Pokal and reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League, but left that summer due to fatigue. He accepted a job as a sporting director at RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg jointly, and appointed himself a coach three years later, earning promotion to the Bundesliga before vying for a place in the Champions League. While at both German stops he exceeded expectations, he was not yet at a club that demanded consistent, high-level European success every year.
“They should have the best available as a coach,” Scholes continued of Manchester United. “They don’t have that and I find it amazing. We should have one of the five best coaches in the world. Now, Tuchel, [Pep] Guardiola and Klopp are the first three but they are not available, there is no possibility of getting them. “
It was then that Scholes began to speculate on the possibilities. “But then you look at Antonio Conte.”
Scholes sees Conte as the ideal man to turn United’s fortunes and believes the Italian could be persuaded to leave Spurs at the end of the season if he is not backed in the transfer market. Some people say it wasn’t right for United, but you’ve seen what he’s doing at Tottenham with a team that’s not as good as United, “he added. He could probably still get it from Tottenham. To fans of Tottenham probably won’t like me for saying that.
“You can see that he is already getting frustrated with his squad of players and asking for other things. Conte could do something special here, he has the pedigree to do it. Will we be able to achieve it? I dont know.”