Paul Scholes has urged Manchester United fans to tolerate Jose Mourinho's brand of pragmatic football, after claiming the club need to sacrifice their attacking style to bring back the glory days to Old Trafford.

Mourinho has become increasingly irate in recent weeks as his critics have suggested he had transported the negative football he has often been accused of promoting in his decorated career to his latest job.

Even though he guided the club to two major trophies last season, Mourinho is still trying to win over critics among United fans and in the media and Scholes has now joined the debate with comments the Portuguese tactician may not enjoy reading.

"We'd all like to see brilliant attacking football, waves after waves of attack, but I don't think this team is capable of that. That's not the way this manager does it," Scholes told BT Sport.

"He's first and foremost a defensive coach. He wants to setup in a way that will stop the other team playing and winning games. He's doing that.

"We have to accept his style of football, as many clubs have done. He's very successful at doing it. United have to challenge for the league, over the last four years they haven’t, and this season they've won a lot of games. OK, it's not been brilliant football, but I'm just happy they're winning games.

"They're in a position where they've brought a manager in to ultimately win the league. For four years the club hasn't really been in a position to determine how they win it."

Meanwhile, Scholes was critical of United striker Romelu Lukaku, after he accused the Belgian of showing a lack of authority as he allowed Daley Blind to take a late penalty in Tuesday night's Champions League win against Benfica.

United manager Mourinho insisted Blind and not Lukaku take the spot kick, even though the United striker was eager to end to end a five-game goal drought, yet Scholes believes he should have insisted on stepping up to convert the spot kick.

"He has to demand it himself," Scholes argued. "He might be short on confidence. He should push everyone out of the way and say 'I'm getting on the score sheet'."

Scholes also suggested the indifferent form of Henrikh Mkhitaryan has contributed to Lukaku going on a six-game scoreless run that has inspired Mourinho to suggest some United fans have turned against the club's £75m summer signing.

"I think the criticism came from the Liverpool game where his hold-up play wasn't great," said Scholes, reflecting on the 0-0 draw in mid-October.

"I don’t think Mkhitaryan helped him and he hasn't had much support since then. He has to be strong and use his frame and he does have to get better, but he does need support as well."

Online Editors