Roy Keane and Gary Neville both agreed with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's decision to field four central midfielders against Manchester City.
The Manchester United manager named Paul Pogba, Bruno Fernandes, Scott McTominay and Fred in his starting XI, with Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford in attack.
With Anthony Martial on the bench and Edinson Cavani not involved in the matchday squad after picking up an injury against West Ham last week, Solskjaer opted to flood the midfield.
It was a tactical decision that both Keane and Neville agreed with, against a City side that is used to dominating possession.
“I think primarily to try and stop the space where De Bruyne operates and clog the midfield up," Neville said before kick-off when discussing United's tactics.
"Maybe draw Cancelo and Walker forward and then they can exploit the space to run into and then maybe you can exploit the two centre-backs of Man City, where the weakness lies with Rashford and Greenwood.
"With the two wide players - Sterling and Mahrez - they always come inside, so maybe the four midfielders can shift across and wait for them.
"I’m not against it, obviously, I haven’t seen it yet - it might be a bit of a mess, but I can see why Ole’s done it and why he’d want to close up the midfield against City.”
Keane agreed: “Believe it or not, I’m going to have to agree with Gary there. They have to get bodies in the middle of the park.
"Whatever the setup - 4-3-3, the diamond, you’ve got to get bodies in there because Man City dominate the middle of the park, so United have to get a foothold in there.
"Like Gary said, sometimes the benefit for United, when they do win it back, obviously they’ll try to hit them on the counter-attack - which they’ve had some joy with in the last year or two.”
