Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville has urged the club to keep faith with manager Jose Mourinho following Monday night's 3-0 defeat at home to Tottenham Hotspur.
Mourinho slumped to his heaviest-ever home defeat as a manager and saw United lose two of their first three games of a season for the first time since 1992-93 as goals from Harry Kane and Lucas Moura (2) piled more pressure on the beleaguered manager.
Even before the game there was speculation over Mourinho's future amid reports of unrest behind the scenes and following last weekend's 3-2 loss at the hands of Brighton & Hove Albion.
However, Neville believes that chief executive Ed Woodward should give Mourinho the chance to come through the "biggest challenge" of his career.
"We saw Louis van Gaal sacked after an FA Cup final victory, we saw David Moyes sacked with four games to go of a season, so we are no longer talking about a club that is behaving as it has historically done," Neville told Sky Sports News.
"I accept these are different times and I accept the difficulties and challenges, but my honest view as I stand here now is that Ed Woodward gave him a contract last season ... he should see that contract through to the end and do the job. You can't keep jumping around with managers.
"Jose Mourinho has been the most successful manager along with Pep Guardiola in the last 20 years in football and he is going through a difficult moment now over the last couple of seasons with Manchester United. This is now the biggest task he has had in his life and the biggest challenge he has had in football.
"He has got to come out of it because I have to say I look at the squad and the team and I'm not sure what the best XI is. He is going to have to back certain players and just stick with it because at the moment they are changing every game. The buck stops with the manager, it always does and it has to. At the moment there doesn't look to be a balanced outfit there at all."
United next take on Burnley at Turf Moor, where they will be looking to avoid falling to three successive Premier League defeats for the first time since December 2015.
Barney Corkhill
