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 deal with Noussair Mazraoui that could cost United up to £60m.
De Ligt spent two years at Bayern but struggled to live up to 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 few months under Ten Hag before his dismissal from Old Trafford but has continued to feature heavily under Ruben Amorim.
Keown remains unconvinced about De Ligt, however, and says his ‘robotic’ defending is creating ‘issues’ for the team.
The Arsenal legend’s criticism comes after Manchester United suffered yet another defeat at the weekend – Amorim’s side losing 1-0 to Tottenham to slip to 15th in the Premier League.
‘I look at De Ligt, the amount of money they spent on him by the way is almost 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.
‘Ruben Amorim needs to 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’.
‘If you lose it’s never enough,’ De Ligt said. ‘We can speak about the personal problems, the injuries, but Tottenham have the same problems. If you lose, it is never enough.
‘We played OK and created some chances. But if you lose 1-0, you didn’t score and conceded one, so we needed to improve at both ends.
‘I think the urgency, the hunger to score, that is something that 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 improve.’
Keown may have had a point in his damning criticism of De Ligt as as the Netherlands international also admitted confidence had been drained from the squad.
‘I think you can say [it] has taken a real hit,’ he added. ‘Especially in the Premier League, if you lose the confidence you lose the game.
‘We still had a starting XI with first-team players. It’s no excuse. It’s not nice when you lose five players in one week, but that’s part of football, part of life.
‘I believe you have to deserve fortune. At the moment, apparently we don’t deserve it. I don’t believe in fortune coming out of nowhere.’
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