Gary Neville Believes Manchester United Are ‘Soft-Centered’ [VIDEO]

Former Manchester United captain and current Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville commented on his former club’s 5-3 defeat at Leicester City yesterday.

Neville shared his thoughts with fellow Sky Sports pundits Jamie Carragher, Graeme Souness and host Ed Chamberlain following the conclusion of Sunday’s match between Manchester City and league-leading Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium.

The former United defender held nothing back in his evaluation of Louis van Gaal’s squad and their effort against Nigel Pearson’s men.

“There’s no doubt Manchester United are soft-centered. They’re not tough enough,” Neville said.

“You saw out there today [in the Manchester City v. Chelsea match] that every time a ball went up to Diego Costa he was getting battered by (Eliaquim) Mangala and it was the same at the other end with JohnTerry and Gary Cahill.”

“I thought the midfield three for United and the back four got bullied [by Leicester City].”

“Credit to Leicester and (Jamie) Vardy and (Leonardo) Ulloa – they really ran them ragged. It wasn’t intricate play or world-class football, it was just hard work.”

“Grit, hard work, with a bit of quality mixed in with it and United couldn’t deal with the physicality of that team.”

“Defensive organization is one thing, but they’ve got to be more competitive than that and win battles and one-on-one duels, because they were soft-centered in that game.”

“Even though things were going against them with a bad refereeing decision, if you can’t compete….You’re playing away in the Premier League at Leicester – what did they expect?”

“Their (United’s) three goals were brilliant, they were absolutely fantastic goals but, they’re going to get done in week in and week out. That was a proper test for them against Leicester.”