Rio Ferdinand delivered a damning verdict on the Man United team after they lost 1-0 to Juventus in the Champions League at Old Trafford on Tuesday night.
Talking on the BT Sport coverage of the game (Tuesday, BT Sport 2, 7pm), Ferdinand said that it wasn’t the defeat to Juventus but the manner of the loss that concerned him.
“Every single Juventus player would have come off that pitch and just said, ‘Wow, we were under no pressure then’,” Ferdinand said.
“United played like the away team tonight. Is that the tactics that they’ve been told to play or are they not good enough?”
OPINION
Damning words from Ferdinand on his former side but he’s hit the nail on the head and said what everyone else has been thinking. Jose Mourinho has had his problems at United but he’s had enough money to spend and his side looks a million miles away from Juventus. Maybe that’s not a surprise but the way they played tonight would have been for United fans of old. The Old Trafford faithful might be used to it by now but the way Mourinho sets his side out is depressing. Even Victor Lindelof questioned after the game why it seems to take United 45 minutes to even think about moving forward and attacking. Where was the high-press that’s used to such devastating effect by Man City and Liverpool? Where was the pressure from the United players? Where was the passion? All too often this is what you seem to get from Mourinho’s United and it’s a pale shadow of their former glories. It’s not easy being a United fan at the moment.