Roy Keane was particularly harsh in his criticism of the performances of two Manchester United players following Monday night’s 2-1 Premier League defeat to Leeds at Old Trafford.
Roy Keane gives a scathing review of Manchester United (Image: Sky Sports)
Manager Roy Keane has slammed Manchester United’s “non-existent” midfield following their disastrous defeat to relegation-threatened Leeds at Old Trafford. Noah Okafor’s brace gave Leeds a 2-1 victory at Old Trafford in United’s first game in 24 days.
The Leeds forward scored twice in the first 29 minutes as Daniel Farke’s side got off to a quick start, but they could have led by more at half-time. Lisandro Martinez was then sent off for pulling Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s hair, leaving United chasing the game with 10 men.
Casemiro pulled one back with a back-post header from a Bruno Fernandes cross, but it wasn’t enough for United, who lost at home to their rivals in the league for the first time since 1981. It was their second defeat in 11 games under manager Michael Carrick, but Keane made a scathing assessment.
“They’ll be disappointed,” he said on Sky Sports. “They’ve been very strong in recent months and there’s a lot of praise for the manager. There were obviously concerns heading into the game with them not playing for a few weeks, but manager Carrick said that should be fine and they’ve been through training camp.”
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“But that’s how they came into the game. They came into the game slow and it’s hard to recover. And they couldn’t do it in the first half. And what you have to do in this game, we saw Man City do that in the second half yesterday, you have to run!”
“They weren’t at full speed, United, and the timing in the last bit was too slow. It’s a huge setback for them. Midfield? Non-existent, especially the first two, they had no energy or quality. Leeds got out of the blocks quickly and it was a great result for Leeds.”
Carrick was forced to replace the injured Coby Mainu with Manuel Ugarte, who played alongside Casemiro at the base of United’s midfield. Leeds got off to a poor start, with some runs out of the blocks, but manager Carrick chose to highlight referee Paul Tierney’s decision in his post-match speech.
Noah Okafor scored twice for Leeds at Old Trafford (Image: Carl Recine/Getty Images)
The United manager believed Lenny Yolo was fouled by Calvert-Lewin before Okafor’s opener and Martinez should not have been sent off for his collision with the Leeds striker. “We didn’t start the game particularly well. We conceded a goal because Lenny Yolo hit us with a forearm to the back of the head,” he said.
“They didn’t make the decision to turn it around, and that was the big moment of the game. We just didn’t quite get our rhythm and didn’t get going. We had some moments, but we didn’t have that for the majority of the first half.”
“After the shocking decision to send Richa (Martinez) off, I thought the players thought positively and played as hard as they could in the second half. That was the second game in a row where the decision went against us, but that game was one of the worst I’ve seen.”
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