Manchester United legends Rio Ferdinand and Paul Scholes have both told Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to drop one of his holding midfielders, particularly against clubs they are expected to beat.
United finally won a game at Old Trafford in the league, escaping a penalty call before Bruno Fernandes netted the only goal of the match from a spot-kick.
‘I think at home, where you can have a lot of the ball, I don’t think the quality is quite there for the both of them,’ said Scholes about United’s midfield duo of Fred and Matic.
‘Whether it’s Fred and Matic or Fred and Scott McTominay, they’re both good at sitting and controlling games of football, protecting the two centre-halves, which is really why they’re playing.
‘The problem is we’ve got defenders who, one-on-one, aren’t very good at defending. So we need those two sitting players to protect the back four.
‘There’s no reason why, at Old Trafford against West Brom, one holding midfielder shouldn’t be enough.’
Ferdinand agreed with this, adding: ‘That’s the problem when you play the two sitters there, if one or two of them can’t pass then it makes it a bigger problem.
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‘If you’ve not got a threat with a 30 or 40-yard pass from deep, teams don’t have to come out.
‘When you played against our team with Scholesy, the opposition midfielders had to come out to get Scholesy as he’d hurt them from that distance – then we’d be able to play the forwards in behind.
‘The main problem is that the two centre-half players need to be protected, that’s why he’s playing two central midfielders that are holding.’
