Paul Scholes has accused Mason Greenwood of ‘cheating’ during Manchester United’s defeat to Liverpool and believes the 20-year-old ‘ruined the whole team’ with his poor decision making.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side sunk to a 5-0 defeat to Old Trafford with Mohamed Salah scoring a hat-trick, while Naby Keita and Diogo Jota also found the net.
Keita opened the scoring after just five minutes as Liverpool cut through United with ease and ended up with three-on-one situation in attack.
And Scholes has criticised Greenwood’s role in Liverpool’s opening goal as the forward ran out of position to close down Virgil van Dijk which then forced United’s defence to change shape.
‘Tactically it was bad today, really bad,’ Scholes told Premier League Productions.
‘But on the other side of that players have got to have some kind of common sense as well.
‘You think about Mason [Greenwood] in that first instance going to close him down, that was almost cheating.
‘He knew he wasn’t going to get the ball and he knew it looks like he was going to close him down but he knew he was just going to pass it and he can’t do anything.
‘It’s almost a cheating way of sprinting to him, they pass it and then he has a little walk back because he thought, ‘I’ve done my bit’. But he hasn’t done his bit, he’s ruined the whole team, all the team get pulled out of position, [Aaron] Wan-Bissaka has to come out, [Victor] Lindelof ends up at right-back, then there’s all of the space in the middle.
‘All of a sudden, from Mason not doing his job properly, the team attacking, Salah played Keita in, he could’ve played Alexander-Arnold in, he could’ve played Robertson in. It was ridiculous the way it happened, sometimes players have got to use their common sense.’
Scholes also believes United were set up for failure by playing Scott McTominay and Fred as a midfield pairing.
‘It’s going to be very difficult [for Solskjaer] to come back from it, you really don’t know,’ said the former United midfielder.
‘You do have to question tactics, today of all days, we keep going back to it, playing those two in midfield [Fred and Scott McTominay] virtually on their own. It was almost two against five players at times. It’s impossible for any midfielder.
‘We can sit here and say Fred and McTominay aren’t good enough for Man United in centre midfield to win a league, but when you’re exposed as they are it’s impossible for anyone. This was always going to happen, playing a game like that against a top-class team, this was always going to happen.
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‘I think the players have to take a bit of criticism as well. We keep bigging them up, saying how special a group we think he’s produced – but a lot of these players have won nothing.
‘Cristiano [Ronaldo] has come in, he’s won, [Edinson] Cavani, he’s won, [Raphael] Varane and [Paul] Pogba, they’ve won things. The rest of them have still got to prove they can win trophies.
‘It’s alright saying we think they can, they play as if they think they can, but for four years now they’ve not been good enough to win a trophy. We can’t just lay it all on Ole.
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