Gary Neville names five problems Erik ten Hag has overcome at Manchester United this season

Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville has named player recruitment as one of the biggest problems Erik ten Hag has managed to overcome in his first season at the club.

Last summer, the Reds invested heavily in their team after Ten Hag identified a squad rebuild as a top priority. The likes of Lisandro Martinez, Casemiro and Antony were all signed but it was not easy for United.

Much of the window was dominated by the on-off pursuit of Barcelona's Frenkie de Jong, who remains of interest to United.

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Speaking on the latest episode of Sky Bet's The Overlap, Neville identified several other issues which Ten Hag has had to deal with. "Ten Hag has laid a good foundation – Jose [Mourinho], Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer] – have all been in this position where they’ve had that first one or two good seasons and now it’s that next step," he explained.

"He’s done very well – the situations he’s had to handle, with a shocking recruitment cycle at the start, when he couldn’t get De Jong and all these players he wanted, where he was told by the recruitment department he could get them, and he couldn’t get them. Then he had the [Cristiano] Ronaldo situation, difficulties with [Harry] Maguire, difficulties with [Jadon] Sancho and with other players as well.

"They’ve played every Thursday and Sunday, pretty much every week, without any rest. He’s done a really good job."

United and Ronaldo parted ways in November after he conducted a controversial interview with Piers Morgan. Captain Maguire has also been in the spotlight after losing his place due to the form of Martinez and Raphael Varane.

Meanwhile, Jadon Sancho missed matches between November and January as he took