Speaking on his podcast, Neville said: "I’ve seen Bryan Robson and Steve Bruce not play in their last games for the club. One of them is the greatest captain Man Utd have ever had. They didn’t get the send-off they wanted so I’m not sure why Jesse Lingard deserved it"
Monday 9 May 2022 19:15, UK
Gary Neville feels Jesse Lingard does not have a "god-given right" to a send-off at Manchester United, stressing the point that legendary players like Bryan Robson did not get an Old Trafford farewell.
Speaking on The Gary Neville Podcast, the former United defender talks about the "nonsense" surrounding the furore regarding Lingard not playing in his final game at Old Trafford, and his thoughts on the United fans chanting 'you're not fit to wear the shirt' at the players during the 4-0 weekend defeat at Brighton.
Read on for the former Manchester United defender's verdict or listen to the podcast below...
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Neville said: "There was a lot of nonsense spoken about Lingard. He's been at the club a long time and done a good job. But I've seen Bryan Robson and Steve Bruce not play in their last games for the club and not get a send-off in cup finals.
"They were both great captains and one of them probably is the greatest captain Manchester United have ever had.
"They didn't get the send-off they wanted so I'm not sure why Lingard deserved it.
"I was thrown away in West Brom in a toilet - sometimes it just doesn't work out, Jesse!
"To feel like you've a god-given right to get some minutes on the pitch based on how they played. Not one of them, other than David de Gea and Cristiano Ronaldo, can complain about what will happen to them this summer."
Neville said: "It's been a shocking few months. I can't wait for the season to end and to stop talking about them. I was delighted not to be on the Brighton game before it, during it and after it. I can't watch them because it doesn't represent anything that a football club should be, let alone Manchester United.
"The players are only damaging themselves to a point where the fans won't forget. They were singing 'you're not fit to wear the shirt' - I have never, ever, heard United fans resort to that chant. That's a chant you would hear at QPR a few years ago or Sunderland when the fans were walking out. I have never known a United fanbase turn on a team like this one. It's now really clear the players have thrown the towel in. They really have. It's been a disgrace for a couple of months. It's embarrassing.
"Ten Hag has got a massive job to do."
Sky Sports pundit Graeme Souness admits he has been left baffled by Manchester United's decision to hire Ralf Rangnick and says it is yet another "ridiculously poor" choice from the club's hierarchy.
"I think as a football person, looking at that Man Utd team, the guy that's in charge of them now they don't listen to him," Souness told Sky Sports after Saturday's 4-0 thrashing by Brighton.
"When I see someone speak in management, I always imagine me as a 22-year-old or 23-year-old in the dressing room and that guy speaking to me.
"He ain't going to get me at it. Fergie would get me at it, he would not get me at it. And I think those Man Utd players have stopped listening, a long, long time ago.
"Man Utd have had ten years since Fergie packed in of ridiculously poor football decisions. What geniuses at Man Utd sat down and thought, 'We're going to get rid of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and there's a guy who is an advisor, a consultant at Lokomotiv Moscow - I've been told he's the man'.
"There is nothing about his CV that would warrant him getting a job at Man Utd. If you go back to the players they've signed, the players they've kept and given their contracts, to this latest guy who has come in as a coach or manager, whatever you want to call him.
"I just don't know where they are getting their football decisions from. They've consistently got them wrong and that's why they're in the mire."
