Manchester United got “sucked in” by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer during his successful spell as interim coach, says Paul Ince, with change now required at Old Trafford in the dugout and boardroom.
Questions are being asked of leading figures on and off the field amid ongoing struggles for consistency.
Solskjaer is seeing his immediate future speculated on, while executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and controversial owners, the Glazer family, have incurred the wrath of a disgruntled fan base.
Ince believes big decisions are needed in order to get United back on track, with poor ones having been made when it comes to managerial appointments and recruitment in the transfer market.
The former Red Devils midfielder told BT Sport: “I don’t think the ownership is going to change, the Glazers, I think they’re here for quite a while.
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“I think Ed Woodward needs to change, he’s done ever so well for United from a commercial point of view, bringing money into the club, merchandise, that kind of stuff.
“But when you talk about bringing in quality players, players that are going to take this club forward, we’ve seen the players he’s brought in.
“[Marcos] Rojo, [Bastian] Schweinsteiger, [Morgan] Schneiderlin, people like that. These aren’t players [that make a difference].
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“He needs to take a back seat. We talk about Michael Edwards at Liverpool who is their football director.
“Most of the clubs in the league have one. It’s the way European clubs have always been.
“For some reason at Man Utd we’ve decided we don’t need one.
“I said at the start and I’ll say it again, too many people got sucked into the fact he [Solskjaer] had such a good start when they won 14 out of 19 games that he was the man for the job.
“He was an interim manager. They had plenty of time to wait until the end of the season, do their research, see who was out there, but they all got sucked into it.
“The crowd got sucked into it and so did the owners. You’re talking about a manager who took Cardiff down, went to Molde.
“The CV’s not great from that point of view. I want Ole to do well, if he does well Man Utd do well.
“But they haven’t done their homework properly and that comes from Woodward so maybe he’s the one who should step back and bring in someone else who knows about the football game.”
United suffered a humbling home defeat to Burnley in their most recent Premier League outing, with that reversal leaving them fifth in the table and six points adrift of the top four.