In a scathing interview, Gary Neville has labeled Manchester United’s transfer window as an ’embarrassment’.
Throughout the transfer season, Manchester United’s pace in securing new signings has been sluggish, with Chelsea now appearing confident in securing the signing of Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong, despite United’s relentless three-month pursuit of the Dutch midfielder.
Neville, speaking on the Overlap in partnership with Sky Bet, criticized the club for exhibiting the same ‘old failings’ as the De Jong saga continues to drag on.
He expressed, ‘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 raised doubts about the success rate of players transferring from the Dutch Eredivisie to the Premier League, and acknowledged that United fans were fatigued by protracted pursuits of players, such as Jadon Sancho.
He remarked, ‘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 secured the signing of centre back Lisandro Martinez from Ajax, left back Tyrell Malacia from Feyenoord, and Christian Eriksen on a free transfer from Brentford.