Manchester United legend Paul Scholes has criticised wingers Antony and Alejandro Garnacho for being ‘quite selfish’ on the flanks.
United’s Champions League hopes came to an end on Tuesday night.
The permutations seemed unlikely to come off; United needed to beat Bayern Munich and hope for a draw between Copenhagen and Galatasaray.
Neither result came in as United lost 1-0 at home and Copenhagen beat Galatasaray by the same scoreline.
United finish bottom of Group A, meaning Erik ten Hag didn’t even sneak into the Europa League and brings a frankly dreadful Champions League campaign to an end.
Paul Scholes comments on Antony and Alejandro Garnacho
The inquest is underway with fans and pundits wondering how United didn’t get out of this group.
Not only that, but to finish bottom with four points and a minus three goal difference? It’s truly shambolic from United and Ten Hag.
Some will point to the defence as United leaked 15 goals in six games.
United legend Paul Scholes is more concerned about the attack though and turned his attention to wingers Antony and Alejandro Garnacho.
Scholes told TNT Sports (12/12, 22:30) that United needed creativity from out wide and didn’t get it from Antony or Garnacho.
Scholes even suggested that they are ‘quite selfish’ players who are looking to score themselves more than set teammates up.
“You expect creativity from your wide players, Antony and Garnacho, but they are quite selfish players,” said Scholes. “They are not players who are looking up, they’re thinking about scoring their own goals, thinking about scoring themselves,” he added.
Rasmus Hojlund needs service
The numbers don’t look good.
Antony and Garnacho combined for zero key passes and zero accurate crosses before being taken off against Bayern on 74 minutes.
That simply isn’t good enough in a game which United simply had to win, with United desperately lacking creativity.
Rasmus Hojlund again didn’t even have a sniff, failing to register a shot on target having been starved of service.
The Dane has talent but he needs to get the ball inside the box and it just isn’t coming from Garnacho or Antony right now.
It wasn’t much better against Bournemouth, combining for nine crosses but only one found a United player.
Both Antony and Garnacho have real quality and potential, and maybe their roles are slightly different as inverted wingers, compared to the old-school wide men who would hug the touchline and whip crosses in.
What we are seeing isn’t good enough though, and if United want to get the best out of Hojlund then Antony and Garnacho need to start finding him in the penalty area.
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