Tottenham 3-0 Manchester United: Graeme Souness blasts Van Gaal for playing boys against men

Graeme Souness has stuck the boot into Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal for persisting with youngsters when he should go all out in the market to sign proven players who will guarantee them goals. The Red Devils were beaten 3-0 by Tottenham at White Hart Lane, a place where they were undefeated in over 14 years.

The 20-time English Champions were comprehensively beaten as Spurs turned on the screws in the second half and surged ahead on the back of goals by Dele Alli, Toby Alderweireld and Erik Lamela. Van Gaal had started with Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard as his front three but the trio failed to muster enough opportunities and could only manage only one shot on target in the entire 90minutes.

Spurs had Harry Kane, Alli, Christian Eriksen and Lamela, who are in brilliant form and the combination wreaked havoc on the Red Devils as they tired over the course of the game. The result gives Tottenham a flicker of hope in the title race while it is a major setback for the Red Devils in their bid to finish in the top four. Manchester City's win this weekend means that they are currently four points ahead of their arch rivals, while West Ham are only a point behind.

"I've said it several times, they're relying on [Marcus] Rashford at 18, [Anthony] Martial at 20, [Jesse] Lingard at 23 to get you goals but this is Manchester United, one of the biggest football clubs in the world and every time we're here to talk about them, that's what we end up talking about," Souness said about United, as quoted by the Daily Mail. "You're asking boys to do men's jobs. This is Manchester United. The other teams in the world at their level - Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid look at their strike forces."

"For the manager, he couldn't complain about the work rate he got from his players in that first half and they were very much up for it," he added. "They worked their socks off to stop Tottenham getting a foothold in the game and it was only in later stages of that Tottenham managed to break free but one shot [on target] in 90 minutes for a Manchester United team is not acceptable."