‘Absolute disgrace’ – Neville shames six Man Utd stars in 359-word rant

Gary Neville was left unimpressed by Michael Carrick’s response to his Manchester United team’s “absolute disgrace” of a performance against Fulham.

Fulham took the lead with the first meaningful attack of the second half as Calvin Bassey outmuscled Matheus Cunha before firing a shot at goal, which was parried by Lammens towards Lisandro Martinez, who inexplicably put the ball into his own net.

Matheus Cunha’s deflected shot saved Carrick and United from a third consecutive defeat, but Neville didn’t hold back in his criticism of his former side, hitting out at them for “walking” through much of proceedings.

“I’ve watched Man Utd since the age of five and that’s the worst I’ve seen them play,” a furious Neville said. “Absolutely pathetic. They’ve walked for 15 minutes.”

Carrick was surprised by suggestions his team was passive and said he was happy with the energy his team showed at Craven Cottage.

But Neville, still fuming, doubled down in his attack on his former side in the Sky Sports studio and urged Carrick to “stop defending them”.

“I’ve never seen a Manchester United team walk as much as that,” Neville said.

“Michael [Carrick] just said there he was happy with the team’s energy – he’s got to stop defending them.

“I get why he’s defending them: he’s loyal; he wants his players to work for him; obviously there’s a long way to go in the season.

“Both teams were the same. I called them mannequins. I’ve never seen a Manchester United team for 15 minutes walk around out of possession as much as that. No alertness, no liveliness, you should be always on your toes.

“Just walking when Fulham were in possession. Fulham had 46 passes in the first couple of minutes of the game. 46 passes Fulham against Manchester United. I don’t know how many over ten pass sequences Fulham had in that match.

“It’s a great time for the international break because there needs to be a rebalance. I wish he could play those attacking players but they’re gonna kill him defensively.

“[Bryan] Mbeumo and [Marcus] Rashford are too wide and too high and they don’t narrow back in. You’ve then got [Youri] Tielemans and [Kobbie] Mainoo in midfield who are a bit one paced so [Carlos] Baleba probably will come in there.

“And then Bruno [Fernandes] floats around and [Matheus] Cunha floats around. So you’ve got these five or six players who are all better with the ball than without the ball.

“It will be great to see them go and score loads of goals and maybe concede one or two and win games. But there’s going to have to be a defensive reset because there are far too many of them walking on the pitch who don’t think they have to do the ugly part of the game.

“Very rarely do I say that a team doesn’t work hard or is lacking in effort because that is the ultimate criticism you can give a group of players, so I’m always very careful about that.

“But that first 15 minutes of that second half, and generally for the first 60 minutes, Manchester United without the ball were an absolute disgrace. Nowhere near good enough without the ball. Nowhere near good enough.”