Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville has said that the club were ‘crawling on their hands and knees’ during the final few weeks of the Jose Mourinho tenure at the club.
Mourinho left United last month with the second highest win percentage in Manchester United history but results quickly started to slide late last year with just one league win from his final six games in charge.
The 3-1 loss away to Liverpool was the final straw for the Manchester United board with the club reaching out to former striker and Molde manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to see if he would be interested in taking over the reins at Old Trafford.
The Norwegian was appointed on an interim basis until the end of the season and Neville felt that Mourinho was undermined during his final term with the club.
“I think the Liverpool game was desperate,” Neville said on Sky Sports.
“The club was just in bits. I said crawling on its hands and knees at the time. What Ole has done is get everybody happy. The connection with the fans is obvious. He’s connected with the players in the first few weeks.
“The performance levels have been a lot higher and the happiness is a lot higher. I think it was needed all around. I thought last season it was desperate at the club in the sense that Jose looked completely unhappy with what had happened.
“I think he had been undermined in the summer and inevitably when that happens the manager ends up losing his job.”
"The club was in bits, crawling on its hands and knees"@GNev2 has his say on the new-look #MUFC side.
Watch live on Sky Sports Premier League or watch in-game clips and highlights with the Sky Sports app: https://t.co/7cFdcgbY9m pic.twitter.com/2KSNqlpG8Z
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) January 2, 2019
Neville added after Solskjaer’s appointment last month that it was imperative that his former teammate relayed strong information back to the club’s recruitment department and that the club had to get that side of football right or they would continue to struggle.
“Ole’s job in the next six months is to be head coach, head scout, head of recruitment and making sure he feeds back really good information into the recruitment department of what the club needs,” Neville said on his podcast.
“My concern over the last three to four years is who has been signing the players. That needs cleaning up and I am certain the club in the next six months will appoint the right people who are best in class to run that side of things.
“Manchester United have to start getting it right otherwise they will struggle.”
