BROWN: NO FIGHT, NO TRUE LEADERS
WES BROWN says Manchester United’s failure to fight for fourth has shown up a chronic lack of leadership in Ralf Rangnick’s squad.
The five-time title winner says an absence of any direction from within the dressing-room is the main reason why qualification for next season’s Champions League has slipped from within their grasp.
Brown, 42, believes none of the German’s group had the ability to rally their team-mates and drag the club over the finishing line.
The former centre-half saw yet another chance to put the squeeze on Arsenal and Spurs wasted on Thursday night following a limp 1-1 draw with Chelsea.
And he pinpointed the lack of leaders within the club as a frailty that new boss Erik ten Hag will have to put right.
Speaking at thewatson Metters golf day, he said: “It’s not been good for a few seasons now.the team isn’t a team – everyone can see there’s something wrong.
“It’s been disappointing for a number of different reasons. For me, when there were opportunities to really grab that fourth spot this season and when there was a chance for the players to step up, they failed to do so.
“No-one’s said, ‘Let’s get something – anything – out of this season’. It’s just not happened. Manchester
United supporters have not seen anything like that type of fight. I always think the club should be there or thereabouts as far as Champions League qualification is concerned, as a minimum.
“United have had chances to take it – and not been good enough.you’ve got to be strong mentally and know how to win games of football, perhaps when
JUAN MATA has tipped
Manchester
United for an
“exciting future” under new boss
Erik ten Hag.
But the Spaniard understands the frustrations from the
Old Trafford faithful this season.
“I would also be frustrated too,” Mata told United’s official club website. “But I also think there is an exciting future ahead, with a new era, with a new manager.
“Hopefully it is going to be a big change in terms of results and fans will be happy.”
you don’t deserve to. Manchester United’s players haven’t been able to do that.”
Brown admitted that football has changed from when he broke into the first team as a teenager during the glory years.
He said: “Playing with the likes of Roy Keane, they had that mentality.
“I’m not saying players now don’t care, they do. But if stuff had to be said or sorted out, then it was.”
Of incoming boss Ten Hag, Brown (left) said: “I think there is a big rebuild on the way. Players will go.
“He will have his own ideas but I do see change. – and potentially a lot of it, too.”
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