Gary Neville says Erik ten Hag is yet to fix Manchester United problem spotted in pre-season

Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville believes Erik ten Hag has yet to fix the issues in the midfield which he feels was prevalent as early as pre-season.

The Reds fell to their first defeat of 2024 on Saturday afternoon as Fulham's Alex Iwobi bagged a late winner in a 2-1 defeat for Ten Hag's team. While United may feel hard done by, for large portions of the game the visitors were on top.

Throughout the game, Marco Silva's side were threading passes through the midfield of Casemiro and Kobbie Mainoo as United struggled to keep the Londoners at bay. On Sky Sports' Monday Night Football, former Premier League defenders Jamie Carragher and Gael Clichy analysed the result and picked out the midfield mishaps.

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Reflecting on their comments, Neville explained how the issue has been allowed to fester over the course of the season. "I was just thinking back to the first Monday Night Football of the season against Wolves where you had Casemiro in midfield and you had Mount and Fernandes pushing up," he began.

"Those spaces alongside Casemiro in midfield were just drastic. It had been spotted in pre-season as well in some of the pre-season matches.

"What Gael [Clichy] and Carra have just shown us is something which has happened repeatedly for seven, eight, nine months and they have just not been able to shake it off. It is obvious that Erik ten Hag is going to be judged on results in the last part of the season and getting into the Champions League spaces is going to be important.

"But I suspect there is going to be a demand around performance levels and making sure there is a feeling