Gary Neville has described Manchester United’s transfer window as an ’embarrassment’ in an explosive interview.
Manchester United have been slow in transfer dealings with Chelsea confident of beating their Premier League rivals to the signing of Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong, despite United’s three-month pursuit of the Dutch midfielder.
Speaking on the Overlap, in partnership with Sky Bet, Neville accused the club of making the same ‘old failings’ as the De Jong saga continues to drag on.
He said: ‘I would go back to Ten Hag and say I think he’s had a really impressive start, a confident start… and he’s not been supported off the pitch by an operation that can get him the players he wants.
‘If you said to me two months ago that Manchester United would have Fred and McTominay in midfield and we would have Martial up front – who every Manchester United fan and coach had written off as being leaving…
‘I’d say that the manager has been given a pretty tough hand. All these clubs – Chelsea, they bring Raheem Sterling in. City bring in Erling Haaland, Darwin Nunez goes to Liverpool. And then you’ve got Manchester United who basically can’t get a player through the door.’
Neville questioned the success rate of players who move to the Premier League from the Dutch Eredivisie – and admitted all United fans were ‘tired’ of drawn-out transfer pursuits of players, like Jadon Sancho.
He added: ‘The old failings seems to be there, in terms of not being able to get anything over the line.
‘Every Manchester United fan is a little bit tired of us. I said this about Sancho and it’s the same now with De Jong – it gets to the point where a signing that should be an excitement for the club drags on that long that actually in the end you actually lose excitement for the signing, it almost becomes a little bit of an embarrassment.
So far, United have signed centre back Lisandro Martinez from Ajax, left back Tyrell Malacia from Feyenoord, and Christian Eriksen on a free transfer from Brentford.