Graeme Souness has slammed Manchester United’s owners for spending £130m on three players who are ‘not good enough’ for the Premier League giants.
The most successful team in Premier League history, Man United are going through one of their worst ever periods, sitting 14th in the table ahead of this weekend’s round of fixtures and a daunting clash with Chelsea.
United finally decided to sack struggling manager Erik ten Hag at the start of the week, with the Dutchman’s replacement – Portuguese coach Ruben Amorim – set to arrive at Old Trafford on November 11.
That means interim boss and club legend Ruud van Nistelrooy will take charge of Manchester United’s next three games before Amorim takes over.
While Ten Hag attracted much criticism throughout his tenure, Souness says Manchester United’s new owners must also take responsibility for the club’s struggles.
Souness was not just underwhelmed by Manchester United’s transfer activity last summer but says the club brought in three players who are ‘not good enough’ in Manuel Ugarte, Matthijs De Ligt, and Joshua Zirkzee.
United spent £50m to sign Ugarte from Paris Saint-Germain towards the end of the transfer window after forking out £45m on centre-back De Ligt and another £36.5m on fellow Netherlands international Zirkzee.
All three new signings have made a slow start to their Premier League careers, however, and Souness questions whether they will ever come good at the Theatre of Dreams.
‘I look at Manchester United since INEOS came in and it’s screaming out to me that they don’t really get football,’ Souness said on the Three Up Front podcast.
‘They’ve now got their so-called footballing people in charge, in Dan Ashworth and Jason Wilcox, and I can’t believe for a minute that they didn’t have an input on the players they signed in the summer.
‘They brought in Manuel Ugarte, Matthijs De Ligt, and Joshua Zirkzee. If they think those players are good enough for United, they’re wrong.
‘They’ve still allowed £200 million to be spent on players like that. They’ve had one summer at the club and look what they’ve done with it! That has to fall at Dan Ashworth’s door.
‘Ruben Amorim’s job now is to get the best out of this group of players, in whatever system that may be. He is walking into what is a very difficult job.’
Souness added: ‘I think it’s a monster job to take on Manchester United at the moment.
‘Even if Pep Guardiola or Alex Ferguson were to walk in there, it’d be a very difficult job.
‘I think the club are at their lowest point in the history of the Premier League, with the lowest quality group of players they’ve had in that time.’
The Liverpool legend also criticised the Old Trafford hierarchy for approaching other managers over the summer before publicly backing Ten Hag and giving him a new contract.
‘Where they went really wrong was during the off-season,’ he said. ‘It was public knowledge that they were out looking for and interviewing a new manager.
‘Did they have any thought about what that was going to do for Erik ten Hag’s position in the dressing room? They cut his legs off.
‘Then they turned around, maybe feeling guilty about speaking to several other managers, and gave him another year’s contract.
‘As a player I would be thinking, “he’s not going to be here for very long.”‘
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