‘Is he waiting to take over from Ten Hag?’

Speaking on TalkSport on Monday, following United’s humiliating 3-0 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur this weekend, Keown has now turned his attention towards Van Nistelrooy again by questioning the 48-year-old’s reasons for returning to United.

“I’m looking at Van Nistelrooy,” said Keown. “Is he giving everything to this manager? This manager looks very lonely on the sideline. Is Van Nistelrooy waiting to take over? Because it looks like if there’s going to be change taking place there.

“Is everyone adding to the group? I’m not seeing that from Van Nistelrooy. Ten Hag is just sitting there, nothing going on, no conversation. Pep (Guardiola) goes back and speaks to the gurus next to him. Is everybody looking in the mirror at themselves giving their best?

“It doesn’t look like the players are committed, it doesn’t look like the staff are particularly committed. It’s a lone man in the dugout.

“You hope that that group of players is there in the dressing room right now and maybe tries to police it because it’s not unusual. It wouldn’t have been (unusual) in our dressing room to have the occasional meeting where we had to try to bash out where things were wrong, where things weren’t going well.”

As reported by Telegraph Sport, Ten Hag is expected to remain in charge for Manchester United’s games against Porto and Aston Villa this week amid growing pressure.‌