Video: Gary Neville slams 'pathetic, spiritless & spineless' Man United

Gary Neville branded the Manchester United stars that played in Sunday’s 6-1 defeat to Tottenham as ‘absolutely pathetic’.

Manchester United suffered their joint-worst home loss in Premier League history on Sunday by falling to a 6-1 defeat at the hands of Tottenham.

Bruno Fernandes may have put the hosts ahead at Old Trafford courtesy of a second-minute penalty, but it proved to be nothing more than a false ray of hope. Tanguy Ndombele, Son Heung-min (2x), and Harry Kane soon handed Spurs a commanding first-half lead.

Serge Aurier later got on the scoresheet in the second-half before Kane’s penalty in the final 11 minutes of normal time completed the routing.

Not helping matters, of course, was Anthony Martial’s red card in retaliation to being elbowed by Erik Lamela. Therefore, the Red Devils went 62 minutes down to 10-men. But Neville offered no such excuses.

“There is no excuse for those 11 players out on that pitch today or 13, 14 players that have played in that game, because they were absolutely pathetic,” the ex-Red Devils defender told Sky Sports.

“Their body language was terrible. It was spiritless and spineless in that second-half.

“But I think when you’ve got a squad that lacks resilience, lacks the know-how about how to win, you’re then thinking about the off-the-pitch [issues] with Harry Maguire and Mason Greenwood, you start thinking about the darkness around recruitment and not getting the players.

“They see Man City sign players, Liverpool sign players, Chelsea sign players, and the minute Spurs went 2-1 up, it’s almost as if all those negative thoughts drained every single bit of confidence out of them.

“It’s not right, but that’s what happened here.”

Donny van de Beek, who made a 22-minute cameo against Spurs, is the only recruit at Old Trafford for the current transfer window. Edinson Cavani and Alex Telles, however, may join before Monday night’s deadline.

“Ultimately, these players felt as though they wanted support,” added Neville. “I alluded to Luke Shaw’s comments a couple of weeks ago when he said they needed players.

“Really good players don’t mind other good players coming into the dressing room.

“I’m sure those Liverpool players when Thiago [Alcantara] came in, they grew 10ft tall because they knew they were being made better by a great player coming in.

“These Manchester United players expected to get some help.

“They’ve not helped themselves today because their own reputation has been damaged because that is nowhere near good enough. But the off-the-pitch stuff does not help.”