MANCHESTER: Gary Neville has launched a scathing attack on Manchester United’s squad, claiming they ‘cheated’ manager Michael Carrick and describing the behaviour of some players as “unprofessional.”
A humiliating 0-3 defeat at the hands of Bournemouth at Old Trafford on Sunday followed a heartbreaking 1-4 defeat at Como, marking the end of Carrick’s managerial era at the club.
Carrick, 45, received a warm welcome from the fans at the Stretford End despite his team losing again, while the home fans jeered his team as they left the pitch.
Neville agreed with the fans’ anger, insisting that he had ‘no sympathy for the players’, while claiming that some of them were not following their diet and sleeping habits.
“They were playing him, weren’t they? They were fooling Carrick for months,” Neville said in an audio broadcast on Sky Sports.
“To be honest, Carrick wouldn’t say that publicly because he’s a class act. But I can represent him. He must be disgusted by the performance of those players. Some of them are unprofessional. So, I have no sympathy at all.
“There are those who don’t sleep on time, don’t eat right, don’t think about Manchester United all the time and fail to live up to what this football club is all about – and what it means to be a professional player.”
“Why? Because success has gone to their heads. Some of those players are actually nobody.”
In the match in question, Carrick surprised many when he benched Bruno Fernandes following the club captain’s open statement criticising the team’s tactics in midweek.
In fact, Fernandes was not even put on the field even though the team was trailing.
The decision marks the first time Fernandes has been dropped from the starting line-up for reasons other than fitness since Carrick acted as caretaker manager against Villarreal in November 2021.
For Neville, Fernandes’ bold action in breaking team tradition and publicly criticising Carrick proved that the players had turned against their manager.
“Carrick failed to get the best out of them and now the players are against him. I know about it because if Bruno himself is willing to speak out publicly with such statements, imagine what is happening behind the scenes.
“If the team captain himself says that, imagine what is being said in the dressing room when no one is listening. The situation is terrible,” he said.