Paul Scholes revealed this week that one Manchester United player invited him for face-to-face talks at Carrington after he criticised him on punditry duty.
You can’t escape Manchester United’s ex-players when watching football matches in 2025.
Whether it’s on Sky Sports, TNT Sports or Amazon Prime, there are former Reds offering their opinions as pundits. Even on YouTube now, the likes of Gary Neville and Rio Ferdinand have their own podcasts.
Paul Scholes often does punditry duty for TNT Sports and also appears on Neville’s show, The Overlap, and has revealed this week that one United player did not take kindly to his criticism.
“Players can be a little bit touchy these days,” said Scholes on The Overlap Fan Debate this week. “I had a player, this year, who contacted me and wasn’t happy with some of the things I’d said.
“He wanted to meet me at the training ground, and I said, ‘of course, no problem’ and gave him my number, but he never got back to me. I would have done it.
“If I’m saying things I believe and he wants me to explain why, it wouldn’t have been a nice conversation, but I said if they or anyone else has a problem, there’s my phone number.”
Five United players Scholes has slammed this year
Scholes hasn’t been shy at calling out United players and it was only last month where he accused Alejandro Garnacho of “sulking” during a clash against Real Sociedad.
After Bruno Fernandes inspired a comeback draw against Everton earlier this year, the 50-year-old also questioned why the Portuguese captain only turned up in the final 20 minutes of the game.
Matthijs de Ligt received a stern assessment as well, with Scholes claiming that the Dutch summer signing was no better than Harry Maguire – something that he has since went back on.
Meanwhile, after drawing against Liverpool in January, the 11-time Premier League champion called out Kobbie Mainoo as a “worry” for his inability to last 90 minutes in games.
However, the most notable saga involving Scholes’ criticism came at Lisandro Martínez, who the ex-midfielder claimed was “not good enough” to be part of a Premier League winning side.
The injured defender hit back at Scholes in an Instagram comment where he wrote: “This jinx guy is really hurting. You put him in Argentina, and he wouldn’t survive.”
Amorim suggests ex-United players need to understand the context
Of course, Scholes is not the only ex-United player to issue some damning criticism for the current players at the club and you have to accept there isn’t much praise to be had at this moment in time at Old Trafford.
However, Amorim has previously suggested that those successful former players fail to look at the context of the club with their assessment sometimes.
“When you play for this team, you have to be prepared for the critics, and I understand that former players had a lot of success here – the standards for them were so high,” he said in a press conference last month.
“They see things like that, sometimes in black and white. Life sometimes is not black and white, there are some other colours and you have to understand the context.”
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