Gary Neville lays out Manchester United solution and it's not sacking Erik ten Hag

Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville insists Erik ten Hag should not be sacked and instead took aim at the Glazers for the situation the Reds find themselves in on the pitch. Ahead of the visit from AFC Bournemouth, United fans were in high spirits thanks to a 2-1 victory over Chelsea in midweek. But the feel-good factor was short lived as goals from Dominic Solanke, Philip Billing and Marcos Senesi condemned the Reds to their seventh league defeat of the season.

Some critics have suggested Ten Hag is now on borrowed time as manager of United and while Neville pointed out performances and results must improve, he was adamant a change of boss is not the solution. Speaking to Sky Sports, the 48-year-old explained. There is no way they should change him this season, this idea of sacking him is absolute nonsense and I would not be in favour of that.

I know people say you can’t blame the Glazers for what is happening on the pitch but yeah you can. Yeah you can because 10 years of failure and miserable recruitment comes down to the fact they have not got a sporting director or a proper head of recruitment in place. That is why this happens. Ultimately managers look above them and think they haven’t got anyone above them so they might as well just do it themselves. This is all down to the leadership.

If it happened once, fair enough, if it happened twice you would ask a question but this is five times, five times in 10 years. They have spent a billion quid, on the limit of FFP, £700m in debt, £300m going to other clubs, the bank overdraft is at £250-300m, they are £1.2bn under.

A new vision for United

Jim Ratcliffe has got to come in and sort this out and you wonder how he is going to come in and do it and that’s the concern I have. What we need is a change of structure at the top, that will hopefully happen in the next few weeks, hopefully that will change the way in which the sporting project is looked at because you can’t come in and leave everything as is. Then maybe, with some leadership and structure around the club, maybe Manchester United can compete with some of the other clubs who recruit and do their business a lot better.