Football
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Paul Scholes, Rio Ferdinand slam Man United 'shambles' vs. Liverpool

Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand were left aghast at Manchester United's disjointed display in their 2-0 Europa League defeat to bitter rivals Liverpool.

United's hopes of progressing in the competition were left hanging by a thread after a penalty from Daniel Sturridge and Roberto Firmino's close-range strike gave the Reds a commanding advantage in the last-16 tie.

However, it was the performance from Louis van Gaal's men at Anfield that disappointed former United pair Scholes and Ferdinand, with both claiming it was a far cry from the glory days under Sir Alex Ferguson.

Scholes, who has been critical of his old team for some time, said on BT Sport Europe: "United were a shambles. At 2-0, they're still in the game, don't get me wrong, but when you're at Man United, I think there's certain standards you have to live up to that and they've fallen well short.

"When we were coming through as players we had great examples in [Bryan] Robson, [Roy] Keane, [Paul] Ince and [Steve] Bruce setting standards, and when we came through we had to live up the standards and hopefully take the club on.

"When me and Rio, when we were playing, we set standards for these players, the manager set the standard for David Moyes, for Louis van Gaal, and every single one of them have fallen short of the standards that should be set.

"I thought the biggest difference there [was] Liverpool had a way of playing. United didn't have a clue what they were trying to do."

Ferdinand added: "To see the lack of fight, the lack of urgency, the lack of cohesion in the team, there's going to have to be a massive, massive improvement in the next leg at Old Trafford because that wasn't good enough.

"Sitting up here watching this, surrounded by Liverpool fans here at Anfield, it's not easy.

"There's no excuses, sometimes you look at the manager etc., but then you've got to ask of the players out on the pitch, you've got to put in a performance, you've got to put in some sort of fight, and today we didn't see that.

"That's one of the most disappointing things you can say about a performance sometimes is that it didn't seem like we had the fight.

"The cohesion and the patterns of play was non-existent today."

Former Liverpool midfielder Steve McManaman thought Jurgen Klopp's men should have won by a greater margin -- although he expects them to book a quarterfinal spot at Old Trafford in the return leg.

He added: "It's still a great result and beforehand you'd take it with both hands without a shadow of a doubt. But the gulf in difference was there.

"Manchester United made one chance, that was it. Liverpool had three, four, five better chances than that.

"Three-nil, the game's over with; two-nil, of course there's still something in it but I've got complete hope in Liverpool next week because I think they'll score next week and if they score and United have to score four, there's no chance they're going to score four the way they're playing."

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