Owen Hargreaves says Sir Alex Ferguson would drop Fred for a month after Everton draw

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Manchester United’s farcical defending allowed Everton to leave Old Trafford with a point on Saturday.

Demarai Gray and Andros Townsend combined on the counter attack to score an equalising goal.

Fred was twice bustled off the ball by Gray in the lead up to the goal.

Former United midfielder and Champions League winner Owen Hargreaves was critical of the Brazilian on BT Sport.

Hargreaves said: “Sir Alex wouldn’t have forgiven Fred for that, he wouldn’t have played for a month, he had two chances to stop Gray and he missed both.”

Will Solskjaer be so ruthless?

Solskjaer did substitute Fred shortly after. Whether this was directly correlated to frustration with the midfielder was unclear.

From a tactical point of view United needed a better attacking midfielder with the score at 1-1, so Paul Pogba came on to replace him.

Midfield is a problem area for United at present. Solskjaer has been too overly reliant on Fred and Scott McTominay.

Donny van de Beek and Nemanja Matic played against Everton in pre-season at United won that game 4-0.

This game would have been an ideal opportunity to play either, or indeed both of the players.

Matic impressed in the win over Newcastle at the start of the month and has not started a league game since, while Van de Beek has not started a league game since May.

Both players need minutes and won’t be featuring for their countries during the international break.

There is a big run of games upcoming after the break and it’s unlikely Fred does get dropped for a month as Hargreaves suggests.

But Solskjaer does have a chance to reduce his role and put greater trust in either Matic or Van de Beek.

With Marcus Rashford returning, Paul Pogba will also likely end up shifting back into one of the midfield positions, likely at Fred’s expense.

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