Richard Keys has wasted little time blasting Manchester United's shock 3-2 defeat to Galatasaray in the Champions League on Tuesday night, criticising both manager Erik ten Hag and a number of players.
United suffered a second successive defeat at Old Trafford when taking on the Turkish champions, having already lost 1-0 at home to Crystal Palace on Saturday afternoon.
Against Galatasaray they had twice taken the lead through Rasmus Hojlund, who is now the youngest player to score in both his first Champions League appearances since Erling Haaland.
However, the Turkish outfit three times fought back, and even had a penalty missed by Mauro Icardi before the Argentine supplied the finishing touches to condemn the Red Devils to a bruising defeat.
With pressure ramping up on Ten Hag after a poor start to the 2023-24 season, this latest loss has seen critics assert that their is a lack of leadership at the club, with many also questioning the quality of defending on show.
Keys took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to voice his own opinions on their performance on Tuesday, writing: 'It’s clear Erik ten Hag has lost his players with his tin-pot tough guy act & by always blaming them. That’s repairable.
'Casemiro, Christian Eriksen, Raphael Varane & Sofyan Amrabat not being able to run isn’t & the goalkeeper is a liability.
'Bruno Fernandes won’t run - that’s a big problem. He’s not a captain.'
Hojlund had given the hosts the lead on 17 minutes, with former forward Wilfried Zaha needing just six minutes to get Galatasaray back on level pegging after out-muscling Diogo Dalot.
The parity held until the break, before the Danish attacker netted his second of the game in fine fashion with a deft chip, but again the Turkish champions came back, with Muhammed Kerem Akturkoglu equalising not four minutes later.
But things quickly got away from the home side, with a shocking error at the back from Andre Onana leaving Casemiro short and picking up a second yellow preventing a third goal, and giving away a penalty.
Although Icardi missed the penalty - his second in a week although in somewhat less spectacular fashion - he would eventually score the winning goal with Galatasaray a man up on United.
Keys was not the only one to pick out Varane's poor performance at the back, with club legend Paul Scholes also pointing the finger at the Frenchman, as well as criticising the overall defensive display at Old Trafford.
'Really disappointed. I actually don’t think they played that badly. All the talk before the game was that they couldn’t really score goals and there was a a lack of goals in the team.
'It is almost as if we disregarded the defensive side of the game and the defensive side of the team it wasn’t good enough they were wide open at times.'
After acknowledging the goals, he added: The rest of it, the centre halves especially. Amrabat, look he’s not a left-back he gets done for the third goal.
'But it was so wide open (the defence) Victor Lindelof and Varane were so soft and weak and we all know what the goalkeeper did as well.'
Lisiknopsz
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Ten hag is the most stubborn coach I've ever seen in the utd history.......he ever wants to prove us wrong but we always prove him wrong as I said before according to yesterdays game below are our problem's 1: The takeover saga.....a real united fan will understand this a real destruction of the team since the current owners came up selling the team unfortunately after the bids they just kept quiet no answer we went on the break at the end of the season knowing that the new owners are coming in at the end nothing is clear... so the first problem are the owners 2:The coach......(Ten hag) if u watched utd all way last season u would end up wondering if ten hag is a real coach or a chemistry teacher there were sings towards the end of the season that this guy was heading the team in a wrong way he lack options of even trying academy products I mean player's at that time when rashford and Bruno were off form he didn't mind or have a second mind so it somehow exposed him 3: The goalkeeper last season before the end of it we all saw degeas costly errors so we needed or expected a new keeper to arrive to give him competition but this is the area he ten hag got wrong we all never expected degea to leave but we expected another new arrival to give him competition but ten hag got rid of him in favor of onana as though onana ain't a bad keeper but he ten hag has no style of play we can't understand him neither 4: Poor handling of players ten hag got the good of CR7 just coz he's not an English man but he got it wrong this time wrong going against Sancho and even a blind man can see that fa is trying to help Sancho get back and we all know at the moment utd can't beat any team until the coach is changed which I think it'll be decided over the weekend and we all know ten hag's time is coming to an end over the weekend 5: poor signing he has just proved us this season that he can't discover talent according to his signing below are his signing this season onana formerly with him at Ajax Mount formerly with him at Fc uretch same goes to Amrabat this is a total mess this is a EPL try to discover talent as how pep and klop do but he goes for his former players 6: Playing players out of position we know at the moment utd is hit with injury crisis but ten is another x factor to himself in real formation since the day one game against wolves we all saw how leaky our midfield is but he got the solution which we all thought it's the best signing he made so far but he's missing using the guy play 433 since we have two defensive midfielders use lindelofe in a number 2 position then shift dalot to number 3 position then use casemiro Amrabat and Bruno in the midfield then Rashford hojuland Anthony at the back lindelofe Evans varane and then dalot but the guy is dumb NB: my view I came in peace ✌️