Paul Scholes has criticised former Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho for ‘engineering’ his departure from the club, complaining too much and falling out with players.
The Portuguese was sacked by the Old Trafford outfit a week before Christmas with the Red Devils sixth in the Premier League.
Scholes was unimpressed by Mourinho’s negative attitude and believes that his dismissal was an outcome that suited all parties.
“I didn’t feel the need (to criticise him), I was just being honest with the questions that were put to me and what I was seeing from the manager,” he told Norwegian broadcaster TV2 recently.
“They had been OK for a couple of years, not great. I just thought at the start of the season when he started complaining very early on in pre-season, saying the kids weren’t good enough, I didn’t like it from the start.
“He was complaining about not getting players in, not getting defenders in, that the club weren’t doing the right thing by him, and I just felt he didn’t want to be there.
“I felt he engineered his move away perfectly in the end.
“His press conferences were embarrassing, I said at the time, the stuff he was coming out with was so negative.
“It was obvious by the end the players didn't want to play for him. They lost all confidence and the right thing happened in the end.”
Scholes did not target United's players for a lack of effort, instead pointing to their shattered confidence as a reason for the club’s stuttering form under Mourinho.
“When a club’s not performing, when players aren’t playing well, there’s only one man who’s going to lose the job and that’s the manager unfortunately,” he said.
“I don’t believe that players actually stop playing for a manager, especially if you’re at Manchester United where you’re expected to give absolutely everything for every game.
“They just looked shot to pieces and the manager wasn’t giving them much confidence. He was always complaining like I said, he was having a go at players, falling out with players all the time.
“He fell out with Antonio Valencia, who is the nicest man in the world. It’s impossible to fall out with Antonio Valencia.
“That was a big sign for me that something wasn’t quite right.
“Now we’ve seen the improvement in the last few games since Ole (Gunnar Solskjaer) has been there, you see the smiles on the faces again. It just goes to show how deep the problem was while he was there.”
