Exclusive: Man United’s dressing room has no leaders and is an embarrassment says Collymore
When Man United were well beaten at Crystal Palace earlier in the week, it was surely the lowest point of their 2023/24 Premier League campaign, and perhaps one of their worst results in recent history.
With the greatest of respect to the Eagles they shouldn’t be in United’s class, and yet they wiped the floor with them.
It was 4-0 in the end but it could’ve been worse and the Red Devils will have had no complaints. They were awful.
What was noticeable on the night was a lot of shrugging of shoulders and players even laughing and joking.
Man United’s dressing room needs a shake up
No wonder former Liverpool and England ace, Stan Collymore, was incandescent with rage.
“The home dressing room at Old Trafford is filled with men children from front to back,” he said to CaughtOffside for his exclusive column.
“The whispers, the leaks, the soft centre, the lack of responsibility… How on earth did a club fine-tuned under Fergie, hard, streetwise, driven and ambitious become the excuse of a squad we see today?
“Players coming off the pitch whispering and sniggering like six year olds is one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen in, lets face it, a pretty embarrassing season for United.
“Where’s the leadership? The desire? Bottle? All I saw were pristine white kits in the first minute and pristine white kits after 90 odd minutes, barely touched with sweat or blood or tears or grass.
“At virtually every club I played for, when we played against Spurs, who were seen as a club of fancy Dan’s who loved to play but didn’t like to duke it out, coaches to a man would say “make sure they get those lilywhite shirts dirty today,” a reference to the kit colour but something deeper. Something that said ‘when it comes to it, these fancy Dan’s wont fancy it.’
“That was Manchester United at Crystal Palace; fancy Dan’s that simply didn’t fancy it.”
Though Collymore is an acquired taste and an outspoken voice as a pundit, as well as being ex-Liverpool, he’ll surely find large numbers of the Old Trafford faithful nodding in agreement.
It’s been a disaster of a season for Erik ten Hag and his players.
The senior players in the United dressing room don’t appear to be up to the task of keeping the squad in check and driving them forward in each and every game.
Could we actually be witnessing a side that are deliberately not playing for their manager?
Whatever message the Dutchman is trying to get across to his players, it’s clearly falling on deaf ears, and were he to be relieved of his duties, any new incumbent to the dugout at the Theatre of Dreams will surely be paying attention from afar to understand that type of characters he will be working with.
Given how poor a number of performances have been, the thought of taking over the current crop of players won’t necessarily be one that fills managers with pride in any case.
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