Man Utd2 - 3Nott'm Forest

Man United were looking to bounce back from a 2-0 defeat at Arsenal in Saturday's late start, but they suffered a 3-2 loss to Forest, with two defensive errors early in the second period costing Ruben Amorim's side.

Amorim again rotated his side for the clash before making changes, some of them surprising, in the second period, and Neville has claimed that neither the new manager nor ex-head coach Erik ten Hag "trust" the current group.

Neville also called the display "a mess" before claiming that the players simply do not work hard enough to be considered a team capable of pushing high up the Premier League this term.

"When you keep changing players and you keep changing your back three and you take five players off, you're basically saying to all of them, because they've obviously been taken off at the start of the game, that you don't trust them," Neville told NBC Sports.

Neville critical of Man United players after Forest defeat

"Ten Hag kept doing that a few weeks ago when he kept changing the back players, changing the midfield. All of a sudden you've got a completely different system, a completely different set of players on the pitch at the end of the game. You can never get consistency.

"It looked really scruffy. They looked a mess at the end United with no real shape. In the first half they weren't brilliant but at least they had a shape to them. Pick an XI that you think are the best. Almost give that XI the faith and trust.

"[Enzo] Maresca's doing it now at Chelsea - he's playing an XI on a Sunday or a Saturday and then he's playing a different XI in midweek.

"He's sending some messages to the players that there's stability here and this is what we're going to do. When you change players all the time you're just spinning plates and there's no consistency.

"You need to build patterns together. You need to build that idea of what you are doing together. No good team is ever a good team without hard work. Manchester United are 13th in the league. Their running stats, their distance covered is 16th in the league. You don't deserve anything if you're being outrun every single week."

Hojlund "devastated" with defeat to Forest

Rasmus Hojlund was on the scoresheet against Forest to make it three goals in three matches, but his effort was not enough for Man United to claim a positive result, and the Dane revealed his 'devastation' after the game.

"Yeah, it is my job to sort of be in these positions, then again, I am not really thinking about that too much right now. I am, to be honest, quite devastated because we know we need the points," Hojlund told MUTV. "We play [again] in what three or four days, so we need to prepare for that and [we have] an important derby next week [at the Etihad Stadium].

"It is a bit annoying, as they scored early in the second half and also early in the first half, which is sort of killing the momentum a little bit and the confidence as well. I think we played alright in the first half after we get the first goal.

"It killed the game a little bit that they got their two goals but, then again when we play at home, when we still have 35 minutes left, we have to do more to see if we could have at least got a point."

Man United will be aiming to bounce back from their latest setback when they visit Viktoria Plzen in the Europa League on Thursday night before heading to Manchester City in the Premier League next weekend.

Written by

Matt Law