Rio Ferdinand has criticised Manchester United for not qualifying for the last 16 of the Champions League and has said Louis van Gaal’s squad lacks leaders.
United lost 3-2 at Wolfsburg, which, combined with PSV Eindhoven’s win against CSKA Moscow, means United will play in the Europa League from February.
“It is embarrassing,” Ferdinand said. “I was in a squad that went into the Europa League. It is an embarrassment. You don’t want to come out of your house, or walk around Manchester. You look at people looking at you thinking ‘You are not good enough’, questioning you and questioning the team, a team that haven’t gone through a group stage they should have.”
Van Gaal started the game against Wolfsburg with inexperienced players, including Guillermo Varela, a 22-year-old Uruguayan defender, and brought on Cameron Borthwick-Jerome, 18, when Matteo Darmian, the Italian right-back, was injured in the first half.
Ferdinand, in the BT Sport studio as an analyst, said: “If you strip it back and look at this one, this squad needs a real hard look. There is no space, there is no power, there doesn’t seem to be great resilience at times, or those leaders you look for in situations like these.
“It looks like people are looking around for each other rather than being the man to stand up himself to say: ‘Listen I am going to drag you through the forces’, and in top teams you can see there is not only one or two, there is three or four of that type of player, and I don’t see that in United at the moment.’
