Ex-Manchester United full-back and media punditGary Neville has said that he found Jose Mourinho's comments on United defender Chris Smalling 'difficult to believe' after the Portuguese manager criticised both Smalling and left-back Luke Shaw for missing their 3-1 against Swansea City on Sunday.
Neville was speaking toSky Sportswhen the former Valencia coach had this to say about Jose's actions,"I find it difficult to believe he has ever been anything other than completely committed to wanting to get out on the training pitch every day.
"So I am not quite sure what Jose has seen, but he is the manager of the club and has to make the calls he sees fit."
Senior players have decided to back Mourinho's 'ruthless' regime at #mufc and support his public criticism of Shaw + Smalling [neil ashton]
Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored a brace while Paul Pogba scored a stunning goal to help United beat Swansea in that 3-1 win, Shaw missed out after not feeling 100% and has been left out in the cold by Mourinho since.
On their day off Shaw trained with Smalling alone to try and boost their fitness heading into the international break.
Neville has a different verdict on the Shaw incident and praises Mourinho for how he is handling the left-back, saying:"I think Luke is a more complex character, he is such a huge talent, but obviously has had injury problems and is not over them from a mental point of view and he needs to work on that."
Mourinho hopes to get Luke Shaw match-fit for the match vs Arsenal [times]
The right-back-turned punditknows the club inside out after spending his entire playing days in Manchester and knows all about the weight of expectation when playing for the Red Devils:
"He is a young person with big expectation, but he is now in the spotlight at a big club, and Manchester United doesn't take prisoners."