Martin Keown says Manchester United paid an ‘obscene’ amount to sign ‘robotic’ defender Matthijs de Ligt from Bayern Munich.
Netherlands international De Ligt arrived at Old Trafford last summer in a double take care of Noussair Mazraoui that might cost United as much as £60m.
De Ligt spent two years at Bayern but struggled to live as much as the hype following a €77m move from Juventus.
The centre-back, now 25, helped Juve win Serie A and Coppa Italia after also lifting silverware at his boyhood club Ajax.
It was at Ajax that De Ligt first played under Erik ten Hag and the Dutch coach pushed Manchester United to sign the defender last summer.
De Ligt only spent a couple of months under Ten Hag before his dismissal from Old Trafford but has continued to feature heavily under Ruben Amorim.
Keown stays unconvinced about De Ligt, nevertheless, and says his ‘robotic’ defending is creating ‘issues’ for the team.
The Arsenal legend’s criticism comes after Manchester United suffered yet one more defeat on the weekend – Amorim’s side losing 1-0 to Tottenham to slide to fifteenth within the Premier League.
‘I take a look at De Ligt, the sum of money they spent on him by the best way is sort of obscene for a centre-half,’ Keown said on talkSPORT.
‘He’s playing like a robot. There’s times he can clear the ball and he puts it out for a corner. He just creates issues for the team.
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‘Ruben Amorim must empower him with confidence, I’m not seeing any of that with him.’
De Ligt fronted up after Manchester United’s defeat to Spurs and made the worrying admission that his teammates ‘lacked hunger’.
‘In the event you lose it’s never enough,’ De Ligt said. ‘We will speak concerning the personal problems, the injuries, but Tottenham have the identical problems. In the event you lose, it isn’t enough.
‘We played OK and created some possibilities. But in case you lose 1-0, you didn’t rating and conceded one, so we wanted to enhance at each ends.
‘I feel the urgency, the hunger to attain, that’s something which may be lacking. That’s not only on the attackers, it’s also on the midfield and the defenders. It’s a team thing and we definitely need to enhance.’
Keown can have had some extent in his damning criticism of De Ligt as because the Netherlands international also admitted confidence had been drained from the squad.
‘I feel you may say [it] has taken an actual hit,’ he added. ‘Especially within the Premier League, in case you lose the boldness you lose the sport.
‘We still had a starting XI with first-team players. It’s no excuse. It’s not nice if you lose five players in a single week, but that’s a part of football, a part of life.
‘I imagine you might have to deserve fortune. For the time being, apparently we don’t deserve it. I don’t imagine in fortune coming out of nowhere.’
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