Gary Neville’s brutal opinion on Man Utd’s "no surprise" Champions League exit
Gary Nevillehas admitted he was not surprised byManchester United’s lacklustre performance againstAtletico Madridon Tuesday night.
United were knocked out of the Champions League in the last-16 asAtleti secured a 1-0 winat Old Trafford to go through 2-1 on aggregate. Renan Lodi scored the game’s only goal witha first-half headerand Ralf Rangnick’s side failed to muster much in reply in front of a frustrated home crowd.
Diego Simeone’s game plan worked perfectly, with a solid deep-set defence and time-wasting tactics repelling United. Raphael Varane came closest to netting an equaliser, but Jan Oblak was equal to his header from a free-kick.
After scoring a hat-trick against Tottenham on the weekend, Cristiano Ronaldo was kept quiet by the Spanish side. Defeat was a huge blow for United, who are now left to chase fourth place in the Premier League to secure Champions League football for next season.
Former United defender Neville was far from impressed with the performance, taking to Twitter to give his take. He wrote: “No surprise last night. Any decent team, with organisation and fight are likely to beat this United team. It’s why I couldn’t get excited after Spurs last Saturday because that Spurs performance would will get you beat v a good team. A long road in to the end of May!”
United are fifth in the Premier League, one point behind Arsenal, who can extend their lead when they host Liverpool on Wednesday night. Rangnick’s side have played three games more than the Gunners and face an uphill battle to finish in the top four.
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Ex-United midfielder Paul Scholes was damning in his assessment of Rangnick’s management, claiming the German should shoulder the criticism for the failure. "It comes from leadership. It comes from a coach demanding that from his players and gets that from his players,” he said on BT Sport.
"I don’t want to keep having a go at Ralf Rangnick, he seems really nice and comes across well in interviews, he’s very honest. But, how he was chosen to be manager of this club for six months until the end of the season, I’ll never know. The coach is a massive part of it.
"This isn’t a terrible group of players. I think if you give this group of players a structure and way of playing, there’s some real talent in the squad. They’re not as talented as the teams above them (in the Premier League), we know that."
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