Gary Neville brands Man Utd draw with struggling Wolves ‘the baddest of the bad’

By Phil Blanche, Press Association

Gary Neville has described Manchester United’s performance in their draw with winless Wolves as “the baddest of the bad”.

United would have gone fourth in the Premier League with victory at Old Trafford on Tuesday night, but Wolves – who kicked off with only two points from 18 games – ended a run of 11 straight defeats with a 1-1 draw.

Rubem Amorim’s side were knocked out of the Carabao Cup by League Two Grimsby in August, yet Neville still felt United plumbed new depths in a contest that would have been even worse for them but for two crucial Senne Lammens saves.

“That was the baddest of the bad that,” the former United captain said on the Gary Neville podcast.

“They weren’t just booed off at full-time. The fans waited in the stadium to continue to boo them. They’ve gone backwards.”

United had beaten Newcastle 1-0 at home on Boxing Day, despite being handicapped by a mounting injury list, including skipper Bruno Fernandes, Harry Maguire and Matthijs de Ligt, and three players away at the Africa Cup of Nations.

But they were flat from the first whistle and Ladislav Krejci’s header just before half-time deservedly cancelled out Joshua Zirkzee’s deflected shot.

Amorim’s 3-4-3 system came under scrutiny again after the Portuguese reverted to his favoured formation in the wake of playing four at the back against Newcastle.

“This isn’t right. I’ve watched enough of United over the last five or six weeks to know what looks right and what isn’t right,” Neville had said 20 minutes into his commentary on Sky Sports.

“When I see that we go back (to three at the back) after five minutes tonight and I’m thinking, no, Ruben, why have you done that?

“The manager has to look at that and think, I got that wrong. I complicated it.”

Amorim withdrew Zirkzee at half-time and sent on 18-year-old Jack Fletcher for only his third senior appearance, saying the switch was “just tactical”.

On Amorim’s substitutions, Neville added: “They made Manchester United worse. Every single substitution was bizarre.

“If Zirkzee wasn’t injured and that was a tactical substitution, it was a really poor one.

“Zirkzee isn’t Eric Cantona, by any stretch of the imagination, but he needed to be out there for physicality, for presence, for experience.”