'I played under Antonio Conte - he'd be a disaster as Man Utd manager'

· Mirror

Michael Carrick’s role at Man Utd remains up in the air after a disastrous start to the season with former Chelsea and Tottenham boss Antonio Conte seemingly waiting in the wings

Former Manchester United star Ashley Young believes Antonio Conte would be a "disaster" should he replace Michael Carrick. The current Red Devils boss is under real pressure following a dismal start to the season.

United chiefs are due to hold crisis talks over the coming days to decide Carrick’s immediate future. Either way, former Chelsea and Spurs boss Conte has been linked with a potential move to Old Trafford, with the Italian keen to get back into work following his spell with Napoli.

But having played under Conte at Inter Milan, Young believes he would not be the right man to get the club back on their feet. Speaking on The Overlap, he said: "I’ve worked underneath him at Inter. He’s crazy by the way, crazy.

> “A lot of talk has been about Man United’s running stats. If they’re not going to run and Antonio Conte goes in there, it’s going to be a disaster I think."

He added: "There was a lot that he’d done, the training sessions were a lot of 11 vs 11, at times a little bit boring. Meetings were long.

> “When I say long, I’m talking: If we lost a game, we could go in for the meeting and he’d stop literally everything. And you could be in there for three or four hours. It was like ‘come on now, let’s be serious’.

> "I think that’s one of the reasons why he doesn’t last long at places because it’s not just the players he tries to test mentally, but the board as well, and the owners. I think that people get annoyed with him and think ‘it’s time for you to go’."

Young is not the only one to have concerns over Conte’s potential appointment. Sir Alex Ferguson’s former United assistant Rene Meulensteen has also suggested that the club should look elsewhere.

Speaking to talkSPORT, he said: “I’ve seen that name being said and I would not be a supporter of that appointment at all. I think that would maybe get a very short uplift but it would come crashing down really, really quickly knowing the way that Conte goes about his job. I wouldn’t be in favour of that.

> “If you asked me any other names, I couldn’t tell you, because the problem is not the next manager. Yes, he needs to be a strong personality, a strong character with great, strong views about the way he wants to do things. But every other manager that has been there before has, reading between the lines, said the same thing.

> “The problem is that the ownership has Manchester United in a headlock. That’s the problem and they can’t get out of it.”

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