Gary Neville has rubbished Ruben Amorim’s claim that pundits are influencing Manchester United’s players and warned that ‘excuse mentality’ and ‘blaming other people’ is the ‘worst thing’ this squad can do right now.
Speaking on Friday, United head coach Amorim said that he feels his players are susceptible to reading and hearing a lot of the criticism about his system through high-profile pundits such as Neville.
Amorim’s job came under significant scrutiny after a dire defeat to Brentford but a win over Sunderland on Saturday has slightly eased things going into the international break.
But put to Neville that he is part culpable for the problems going on at Manchester United right now, the Sky Sports pundit was totally unimpressed.
‘I’ve not got a lot of time for that,’ he said on the Gary Neville podcast.
‘If pundits are getting in your head you shouldn’t be playing for the club, simple as that.
Ruben Amorim and his Man United stars have been called out for having an ‘excuse mentality’
Wayne Rooney and Gary Neville were both critical of Amorim and his system last week
‘Do people not remember Alan Hansen criticising us as young kids, saying “you can’t win anything with kids?” That was the greatest centre back in that moment, the most successful centre back of all time at that moment talking of us as if we were inferior and nowhere near good enough. Do they not think we got criticised during our football careers?
‘I’m sorry, you’re playing for Manchester United, it comes with the territory. You’ve got to step up.’
They finished Saturday night ninth in the Premier League table with goals from Mason Mount and Benjamin Sesko enough to down a Sunderland side that had been one the surprise packages so far this season.
But that remains just their third win from the opening seven league games and two of those have now come against newly-promoted sides.
Neville’s biggest gripe with what Amorim said was that, in his eyes, the glaring problem with this side is a lack of accountability when the going gets tough.
‘I never blamed anyone else when we lost football matches,’ he explained.
‘I played in a dressing room whereby when you lost football matches you came in and said, “sorry about that today lads, I was a mess for that goal”, there was accountability.
Manchester United got a much-needed win over Sunderland but Neville is not yet convinced
‘Why would you blame other people when you’re losing matches? That’s a pretty big problem in itself.
‘I’ve not got any time [for the suggestion pundits influence players]. Excuse mentality, shortcuts, blaming other people, it’s the worst thing you can do that in life.
‘They need to concentrate on doing their job and doing it well and win football matches. That’s the only thing that’s going to shut people up and that’s winning football matches and they’ve not won anywhere near enough football matches.’
Premier LeagueManchester United
