Dwight Yorke claims he would not swap goalkeeper David de Gea for ‘anyone’ and says ‘needs to be called out’ over the club’s indifferent form.
While United have largely impressed in Ten Hag’s first season at Old Trafford – and moving into the spots – their campaign will be viewed very differently if they slip out of the top-four.
The Red Devils are currently fourth – two points behind Newcastle United and one above revitalised Liverpool – having lost their last two games 1-0.
Overall, Erik ten Hag’s side have lost nine league games this season, more than the team suffered under in 2019-20 and 2020-21.
‘Manchester United losing nine games in the Premier League under Erik ten Hag does raise some issues,’ Yorke told .
‘If you are a Manchester United manager, you will always be scrutinised for little details or mistakes. There’s nowhere to hide.
‘Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had a better record than Ten Hag in his full two seasons managing the club, people talk about the progress we’ve made and the better style of football being played.
‘Manchester United have reached the FA Cup final, won the Carabao Cup and made it far in the Europa League so that is progress, but Ten Hag losing more Premier League games than Solskjaer in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons has to be called out.
‘The results have not been good enough this season, Manchester United are looking over their shoulder and are desperately trying to hold onto fourth place, I’m not sure that’s where the club wants to be.
‘You can’t hide in these circumstances, the players and the manager alike need to be called out. Ten Hag gets the praise when the team is playing well, he has to take the criticism when it goes wrong too.
‘The disappointing thing in my observation in these games is that Manchester United don’t know how to win ugly, it always has to be a pretty game of football.
‘We rarely win games 1-0, football is not about scoring loads of goals, it’s about getting the results and rolling your sleeves up in certain games, like the West Ham game.’
Yorke, who won the treble with Manchester United in 1999, has also leaped to the defence of De Gea following the backlash he received after .
Not for the first time this season, De Gea , sparking .
De Gea’s current contract is set to expire in the summer but Ten Hag wants the Spaniard to sign a new deal and .
Manchester United have been amid uncertainty over De Gea’s future but Yorke says he would not swap the 32-year-old for ‘anyone’ and certainly not reported target David Raya.
Yorke said: ‘I have not seen any outstanding goalkeepers that are far greater than David de Gea, so I wouldn’t swap him for anyone at the moment, even with the mistakes he’s made recently.
‘I really don’t think there’s many better goalkeepers in the world than De Gea. Is David Raya better than De Gea? I don’t think so.
‘Manchester United will be looking for a better player as well as a character who can come in and deal with the step up of playing for Manchester United. Maybe Dean Henderson can do it, but I’m not so sure.’
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