Former Manchester United and Liverpool striker Michael Owen has questioned whether United will finish in the top 6 this season.
Speaking after United goalless draw against Dutch AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League Owen said ‘Yes, I’d say (Manchester United are now a mid-table team),’ ‘I don’t think they’ll be top six this season, personally.
‘Top half I think is likely, but just the fact we’re having this conversation is the worry, isn’t it?
‘This has got to be the worst Manchester United team for decades, hasn’t it? Since before Sir Alex Ferguson took over.
Before the match, there was a lot of concern from United about Alkamaar’s artificial pitch with players sighting the possibilities of injury.
United failed to register a single shot on the target in the game and looked devoid of creativity.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been under pressure recently with United getting off to their worst start in a season since 1989 and Owen has blamed Solskjaer for some of the problems at United.
The point that I’d like to make is that in many ways, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has knowingly weakened his team. Getting rid of people like Lukaku, Herrera, [Matteo] Darmian, Sanchez, [Chris] Smalling. He knows he could improve his team with those players, but I think he’s taken the view that you’ve got to take a couple of steps backward to then move forward.
‘He’s done that on purpose thinking, ‘right, we’ve just got to rid ourselves of players that, OK they’re probably better than what we’ve got, but are they going to take us to where we want to go?’
Manchester United now face a tricky run of fixtures with a trip to Newcastle on Sunday followed by a home game against their old rivals Liverpool.
