Paul Scholes has rubbished suggestions that he is deliberately undermining Louis Van Gaal in the media in order to facilitate Ryan Giggs' rise to Alex Ferguson's former throne.
Scholes was caustic in his criticism of United's performance at Anfield last Thursday, questioning the players' commitment, calling the performance "shambolic" and saying that the team lacked direction.
A couple of weeks ago, United fanzine Red Issue explained the schism at the heart of the club; a divide between the football side (headed by Ferguson) and the business side (a three-headed beast of Ed Woodward, Richard Arnold and the Glazers). Read the full details of that here.
A feature of this divide has been Ferguson's loss of control at the club:
Fergie furious @ loss of influence.Hates Wward&his commercial dept, tells pals Utd is "all about money now" (despite it paying him £2m p/a)
— Red Issue (@RedIssue) February 21, 2016
Scholes, as a member of United's much-marketed Class of '92, was asked by another fanzine - United We Stand - whether his criticism of Van Gaal's United was orchestrated by Alex Ferguson, as a way of his former manager regaining some control at the club. Scholes rejected the claim out of hand:
What a load of bollocks. What I've always done is nothing more than say what I think I've seen on a football pitch, whether that's been good or bad.
The thing with Van Gaal is that everything he has read and everything I say that gets printed, is only the negative stuff. There are times when I have tried to be positive. The best example I can think of was PSV away when we got beaten and didn't play great but I felt that I could see something happening in the United way. By that I mean we had two wingers in - I think - Ashley Young and Memphis.
But when only my negative comments are picked on, it looks worse than it actually is.
It's not the regime I've had a go at, I've criticised the style of play.
The fact that such a question is being asked is indicative of the dysfunction enveloping United at the minute.
