Charlie Nicholas took a direct dig at Newcastle United and Manchester United as he delivered his thoughts on their upcoming clash.
The Sky Sports pundit sarcastically claimed it would be a cracking game between the two sides on Saturday and suggested that both teams were boring and questioned how there was going to be a goal during the match.
Nicholas’ labelled the Magpies as poor before sharing how he would approach playing them if he was Man United manager Jose Mourinho.
“That will be a cracking game, I bet I get that on Saturday,” sarcastically remarked Nicholas on Sky Sports’ Soccer Special (Tuesday October 3, 22:02pm).
“No! (When asked are the Magpies’ tailored-made opponents for Man United) Absolutely not!
“Because honestly Newcastle are poor, you can guarantee that Rafa is going to turn up at Manchester United and he is going to park the bus and say after 25 minutes, ‘You are as boring as we are’ so whose going to find a goal in these games.
“If they park the bus at Manchester United, he (Mourinho) could change five players this weekend if you’re Manchester United, I don’t expect Alexis Sanchez to be in, the manager is having problems with Pogba so I’d leave him out and I would go with Lukaku, Rashford, Lingard back in and go for the guys who are going to show energy and appetite.”
OPINION
Brutal. Absolutely brutal. Nicholas clearly is crossing his fingers that he doesn’t have to sit through the Magpies against Man United on Saturday and it’s hard to blame him. Both sides have been painful to watch this season for a variety of reasons and sometimes watching paint dry would have been more enthralling. However it should be more of a damning assessment of Man United then it is of the Magpies. Benitez was right to attempt to shut up shop when playing the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City as the two Premier League giants have several world-class players who could have torn the Magpies apart. While his tactics didn’t deliver the results he would have liked, his side only suffered narrow defeats which shows they remained with a chance of getting a point from them clashes for the whole of the 90 minutes. On the flip side Man United have a host of fabulous talents who could be unleashed by Mourinho but instead he chooses to keep the shackles on them and churn out his boring style of football that has Old Trafford yawning.
