Gary Neville says Ruben Amorim may be ‘targeting’ Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho in order to ‘wrestle control’ at Manchester United, just as Sir Alex Ferguson did with several high-profile players across his illustrious reign.
Once the focal point of United’s attack and a poster boy for the academy, Rashford, 27, has not featured in the Red Devils’ last seven games and has seemingly been frozen out by Amorim.
Having suffered a drastic decline in form over the last two seasons, Rashford outlined his desire for a ‘new challenge’ last month – and the forward now looks certain to have played his final match for United, the club he joined at the age of just seven.
AC Milan have asserted themselves as the clear frontrunners to secure a loan deal for Rashford, while the likes of Galatasaray, Borussia Dortmund, Como and West Ham have also been credited with an interest in recent days.
Garnacho had been viewed as another of United’s few untouchable players but there is mounting speculation that the 20-year-old could be set to follow Rashford out the Old Trafford exit door this winter.
The latest reports suggest United would be open to selling Garnacho to Napoli, though are holding out for a fee in the region of £70million for the Argentina international this January.
Speaking on The Overlap US’ It’s Called Soccer podcast, ex-United defender Neville said it would not ‘surprise’ him to see both players leave the Theatre of Dreams.
‘It’s been in the news in the last 24 hours that bids are coming in for Garnacho, there’s been new stories about Rashford going on loan or to another club, it genuinely wouldn’t surprise me if Ruben Amorim made these big types of calls,’ Neville said.
‘I don’t think he’s got anything to lose. We’ve seen it all over, ten years, whereby these talented players who haven’t delivered on a consistent basis that will not get Manchester United to the top, that he might just have to target [certain players].
‘If you think about what Sir Alex Ferguson did over many, many years. Sometimes some of the major fallouts were with the big players but that was for him to wrestle control.
‘Sometimes it was unfair, sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes it was a shock to players who stayed at the club but if you look back and think that when he [Ferguson] first came in Norman Whiteside and Paul McGrath were let go in his early days and beyond that, Jaap Stam leaving, David Beckham, Roy Keane, Ruud van Nistelrooy, massive players.
‘You thought, “These players can’t leave the club, it’s not right!”, but he did it to wrestle control, whether you liked it or didn’t like it, agreed or didn’t agree with it.
‘Maybe Ruben Amorim has to go basically for the most high-profile players and say, “I’m in charge here, I don’t care who you are, I’m the one who is going to be implementing the standards at the football club and if you don’t quite hit them, I don’t care how talented or valuable you are, what the fans think of you, what your pay packets are, you’re done”.
‘This will be a big transfer window. It might not be as big as we think but if Garnacho and Rashford were to go, they would be big moves.
‘It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a mini clear-out and he brought in one or two players.’
According to Neville, Amorim has little option but to make ‘some drastic decisions’ or he will risk suffering the same fate of Erik ten Hag and many of United’s managers before him.
‘I think what’s happened is the new owners have come in and they’ve made some real big decisions, not always popular, and the new manager has come in,’ the former England right-back added.
‘They’ve got a lot of reference points of what’s happened in the last ten years, trying to placate players, trying to keep them happy, trying to give them new contracts, trying to turn them around, thinking they can get more out of them than the last manager… I think what’s happening is they’re looking at it and thinking enough is enough.
‘To get this cultural change that everybody talks about at Manchester United, to actually enforce that and create it, you’re going to have to make massive decisions and make the players, the rest of the club, feel like it’s a different club.
‘I think that if you’re targeting Rashford and Garnacho, who, by everyone’s opinion, would have been Manchester United’s most talented front two at the start of this season, the ones you would think they would rely upon and say, “Right, you two are out”, I know Garnacho has come back in now…
‘I think he’s basically thought, “I’m not going to go the same way of the previous managers and see lack of effort, poor training, poor standards”, whatever it is he he feels he’s seen and he’s alluded to standards…
‘It’s got to that point now whereby he’s going to go the same way as Ten Hag, same way as [Ralf] Rangnick, same way as Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer], same way as Jose [Mourinho], same way as Louis van Gaal and [Daid] Moyes if he carries on doing the same thing. He’s going to have to make some drastic decisions.’
Neville has been encouraged by the greater ‘commitment’ United’s players have displayed in recent games, though is reluctant to get overly ‘carried away’ at this early stage of Amorim’s reign.
‘He’s been more consistent with his team selection, I think that’s absolutely imperative,’ he continued.
‘There were certain things, the Newcastle team selection of Casemiro and [Christian] Eriksen in midfield and obviously having to correct it and take [Joshua] Zirkzee off. He played Zirkzee off the front in that left pocket position.
‘The back three didn’t have any pace. Honestly, I think that was a really difficult team he picked to win that game that day so I think he’s looked at himself since then and picked a more consistent XI.
‘They look more committed, more settled but let’s not get carried away.’
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