Gary Neville has urged Ruud van Nistelrooy to consider playing a three-man defence with Manchester United following Erik ten Hag’s exit.
Ten Hag was sacked on Monday morning less than 24 hours after United’s 2-1 defeat away to West Ham in the Premier League.
Van Nistelrooy, who scored 150 goals for United during his playing career and returned to Old Trafford in the summer as part of the first-team coaching staff, has been named as the team’s interim manager.
Sunday’s defeat to West Ham has left United 14th in the Premier League table with just three wins from nine games so far. United have also failed to register a victory in the Europa League this season with draws against FC Twente, Porto and Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce.
Van Nistelrooy will now take charge of United for their Carabao Cup tie at home to Leicester City on Wednesday night before his side host Chelsea in the Premier League on Sunday.
And Neville believes United could benefit from lining up with a three-man defence in order to provide more solidity to the team.
Asked if Van Nistelrooy can immediately instill a new identity in the team after Ten Hag’s exit, Neville told Sky Sports: ‘I mean it’ll be almost impossible wouldn’t it, for him to do that in the next few days.
‘What’s he going to be able to do? He can set the team up differently, I mean that’s something that could happen, he could make the make-up of the team slightly different.
‘But he’s been on the bench with Erik ten Hag so I’d be amazed if there something drastic happened in the next few days in the games that he’s got to manage.
‘I think that ultimately there needs to be quite a lot of work done with those players because at this moment in time they are desperately struggling.
‘Erik ten Hag has not been able to get a consistent level of performance out of them and a lot of those players now are his players, he was backed in the summer and that ultimately I think is a big factor in this.
‘Ruud van Nistelrooy will do his very best, I have thought for a number of months that looking at the players United have they may be better suited to going three at the back, just purely because of a lack of a centre-back pairing and the full-backs, to be fair, look better going forward than they do defensively. So maybe that could happen, maybe that might give them a little bit more comfort because it would give them an extra body at the back but also get the players into a system whereby they’ve got more support.
‘That’s something I’ve thought for a few months, but whether Ruud does that and whether that’s the right way to go I’m not sure. It’s ultimately in this moment in time something that we’ll see against Leicester on Wednesday night whether he believed in what Erik was doing because he’ll pick a different team if he didn’t.’
Neville also admits he was ‘shocked’ by Erik ten Hag’s call to drop Manuel Ugarte, a £50.7m summer signing from Paris Saint-Germain, for United’s game against West Ham.
‘I think the lack of identity and style is something that’s been a mystery for the last two-and-a-half seasons,’ Neville said.
‘Let’s say the recruitment has been poor, which I don’t think it’s always bene the best at United by a long stretch, it’s been awful at times, but I do believe that there are a group of players there who can play a lot better than they are. You can put an identity in them.
‘Yesterday I was shocked to see Eriksen and Casemiro in central midfield [against West Ham] and Ugarte on the bench.
‘Ugarte was brought in as sort of being the successor to Casemiro and obviously he’s not started brilliantly for him, but I think things like that, if I was an owner looking at that I’d think, ‘hang on a minute, these two in midfield are obviously getting on in age, and you’ve got a lad [Ugarte] that’s been brought in for £40m who’s basically got legs’. I would be asking questions around that as an owner.
‘I think the lack of style of play has been the biggest problem and the lack of progression and the performance levels, it’s a real struggle watching United play and that’s not changed really for the last 18 months, and that I think in the end has been as big a problem as the results.’
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