Ashley Young took aim at Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho following Manchester United’s dismal 3-0 defeat to Tottenham, claiming the duo played with ‘no confidence’ at Old Trafford.
United gave themselves a mountain to climb after a nightmare start to the game, with Brennan Johnson striking inside three minutes before Bruno Fernandes was shown a red card for a reckless challenge on James Maddison.
Joshua Zirkzee and Garnacho both squandered chances to equalise but goals from Dejan Kulusevski and Dominic Solanke put the game to bed in the second half, with Erik ten Hag’s substitutions failing to turn the tide.
The result leaves the Red Devils stranded down in 12th place, eight points behind league leaders and arch-rivals Liverpool after six matches.
Spurs, meanwhile, moved up to eighth with the victory and will look to make it five wins from five in all competitions when they return to Europa League action away to Hungarian outfit Ferencvaros on Thursday evening.
Young, on punditry duty with Sky Sports, urged United’s players to hold a ‘crisis meeting’ ahead of their trip to Porto, with the likes of Rashford and Garnacho appearing to be lacking in confidence at the Theatre of Dreams.
‘I think it just showed today, where you’ve got the two wingers going one-v-one and instead of going to attack the space in behind, they’d rather go back and play the safe pass,’ the former United star, now with Everton, said.
‘That’s when you know you’ve got a winger with no confidence.
‘As a winger previously as well, when you’re here, when you see a one-v-one, that’s when your eyes light up, that’s your time to shine.
‘When players are not doing that, turning it down and wanting to go backwards, it’s not the way to be doing it.
‘It’s one of those things. They are going to have to have a meeting between themselves and work out what is going wrong.’
According to Young, United seemed ‘happy’ for Tottenham to have the lion’s share of possession and need to ‘get back to basics’.
‘You want to be on the front foot, you want to be attacking, you want to get the fans on side, you want to work hard,’ he added.
‘There’s none of that out there and that was just shown today that the players just look lost.
‘We had a DNA at Manchester United where you’re on the front foot, you go and press teams, you squeeze teams, you get the ball back, you get corners, you get throw-ins… there was just none of it.
‘It was like they went out today and they were just happy for Tottenham to have the ball and over the years that’s not been the Manchester United way.
‘What is going to be the change? I do think there needs to be a crisis meeting.
‘Those players in that dressing room need to have a look at themselves and have a meeting together without any staff there, just with the players, and work out where it’s going wrong, what’s happening and what they need to do.
‘It’s getting back to basics because what is going on right now, the basics are not being done.’
Young continued: ‘There’s too much individuality out there. You’re not really seeing a team and you’re not seeing that togetherness.
‘Christian Eriksen said in the week that FC Twente wanted it more. That’s not even possible.
‘There’s no way you can have a team that wants it more, especially when you’re at home and you’re starting the season wanting to get rid of what happened last season, what happened in the last few years.
‘I’ve been here when it was successful, I’ve been here when it wasn’t successful. It’s a difficult place but you know when you’re in this club that you’re part of that DNA, you know the size of the club, you know where you can take the club to and it’s just doing the basics.’
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