MY ACCOUNT
Ex-Manchester United assistant Rene Meulensteen has slammed Ralf Rangnick’s men for a lack of pride when wearing the famous red shirt.
The Dutch coach spent six seasons working under Sir Alex Ferguson in what were more successful days at Old Trafford.
But Saturday’s 4-0 defeat at Brighton marked a new nadir for United as they get set for a season without Champions League football.
Meulensteen believes lots of the Red Devils’ current problems come from a rotten dressing room culture that has been allowed to fester.
He said: “The most important thing when you sign for a club is to represent them with pride. We know some players that have come in have never really committed to the club.
“Then you get these rumours fed in through the media that ‘he’s not happy’ and this player or that player wants to go.
“If you’ve got a very solid dressing room and those players in the dressing room want to be there together, they want to do well together and fight for each other.
“But if you’ve got people in there who don’t really want to be there then you feel that. You will sense it and it has an effect on the performances.”
Meulensteen, 58, is currently Australia’s assistant coach and admitted he thought Cristiano Ronaldo’s signing would help United challenge for the title this term.
He added: “There were a lot of expectations, even from myself.
“When Ronaldo comes in, he comes in for one reason only and that’s to improve the team and basically get United challenging again.
“They were second in the league, so no reason to believe anything else.
“For some reason there was that lack of consistency at the start of the season and performances started to fall away.
“When I see United play, I see a team that is lost. They are lost completely. There is no cohesion, no organisation, no structure, any basic thing that you need in any successful performance is not there.”
Rangnick: It will improve next season
Interim boss Ralf Rangnick remains confident that things will improve quickly under Erik Ten Hag next term, however.
The Ajax manager will take over in the summer and is expected to lead an overhaul of United’s squad as they look to return to past glories.
Rangnick said: “I’m still very positive that with Erik Ten Hag we have a top manager next season and I’m also pretty sure the board has already made some changes and there will be more changes to come in the summer.
“I’m still positive that we can change the whole issue and show a completely different face next season and this is important, not only for our fans but also for the image of the whole club.
“If there is one good thing that we realise, it’s that there is a lot of space for improvement and that we need some changes.”
