Rio Ferdinand Names Six Signings That Sum Up Manchester United's Problems

Rio Ferdinand said that there were many issues at Manchester United and named six signings in the last seven years that have summed up the problems at the club.

The former United defender turned pundit was in the BT Sport studio on Wednesday night to watch United lose 2-0 at home against Burnley, their eighth league loss of the season.

After the match Ferdinand was very passionate about all the misfortunes at United and speaking about recruitment he named the six players who sum up what's gone wrong, "The recruitment, and you can look at the recruitment over seven years this has been on a downward spiral," he told BT Sport.

"You look at some of the players that have come in, [Marcos Rojo], [Radamel] Falcao, [Marouane] Fellaini, [Morgan] Schneiderlin, [Matteo] Darmian, [Memphis] Depay. Were these players ever really United players?

"For different reasons, either mentality, ability, style of play, were they ever really Manchester United players?"

"And that's what I was a lot of the time getting baffled with, who's buying these players? Is it a manager coming in, 'I want these players for now?', or is it the club saying 'no, hold on. we're going to buy for now but also future proof the club as well.' And I don't think that was coming into consideration."

The former England captain also pointed out that for all the recruitment the club's best players this season had been academy products Brandon Williams, Mason Greenwood, Marcus Rashford and Scott McTominay.

On Wednesday night the team were without both Rashford and McTominay through long term injuries and Greenwood started the game on the bench, though he was brought on at half-time for Andreas Pereira.

Solskjaer's team also had to do without Paul Pogba through injury and the midfield of Pereira, Fred, who is much improved, and Nemanja Matic shone a light on a big part of the recruitment issues.

Solskjaer's team had early chances against Burnley through Juan Mata and Anthony Martial but once those were missed the team rarely looked like scoring and didn't trouble Nick Pope too often.

Chris Wood opened the scoring in the first half when he got on the end of a free kick, and Harry Maguire failed to mark him, before Jay Rodriguez's excellent strike doubled the lead in the second half.

Ryan Sidle

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