Krishnan Sreekumar
Club legend Gary Neville takes aim at Manchester United for being tone deaf after Champions League exit
Club legend Gary Neville took to Twitter to express his disappointment and anger at Manchester United’s senior officials for their reaction to the side’s Champions League exit last week before even making it to the quarterfinals of the competition. (h/t Express).
Renan Lodi struck in the first half of the second leg of the Round of 16 tie last week, giving Atletico Madrid a 2-1 lead on aggregate over United to progress to the later stages of the UCL. Despite huffing and puffing in the end, the English side were knocked out of the tournament.
Neville, who won 2 Champions League titles with the Red Devils, took to social media to lambast the team and staff for jetting out for a ‘global tour’ after the loss, insisting that they were tone-deaf in their actions.
With the Atletico loss, the Old Trafford side are set to finish the season without winning a trophy for the fifth year running. Their last title was the UEFA Europa League in 2017, which they won under Jose Mourinho.
Global tour
Neville’s comments come after interim manager Ralf Rangnick was spotted watching cricket in the Caribbean. The official West Indies Twitter account had posted a picture of the German alongside former batsman Gordon Greenidge on the weekend.
Marcus Rashford was also spotted at a boxing event in Dubai with teammate Brandon Williams, who is currently on loan at Norwich City.
Further, the club’s co-owner Avram Glazer was spotted at the opening race of the F1 season in Bahrain. The Glazer family has long been criticised by fans for treating their club as a cash cow instead of actually focussing on its development.
Rangnick was appointed late last year on an interim basis to guide the club back to the top four spots in the Premier League after his predecessor Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was dismissed following some poor performances.
As things stand, United are sixth in the league table, four points behind fourth-placed Arsenal, who have a game in hand against the Red Devils. If the team does not pick up some consistency and wins under Rangnick, we could very well kiss our UCL football hopes goodbye.
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Neville comes from an extremely successful period of the club where he himself was the captain of a serial-winning team that practically won everything they set their sights on. To him, seeing his boyhood side crash out of competitions and fail to win trophies is explicable, given the standards he himself had set while as a player.
The international break will give the players and staff to clear their heads after last week’s UCL exit and focus on finishing strongly in the summer once everyone is back. Hopefully, we kick on from here and secure fourth place to ensure we play in the Champions League next term.
