Paul Scholes has taken aim at Rasmus Hojlund, Joshua Zirkzee, Manuel Ugarte, Lisandro Martinez and Matthijs de Ligt as Manchester United’s winless run stretched to five games.

After a goalless draw with Ason Villa on Sunday, the Red Devils dropped to 14th position in the Premier League standings. Despite another summer of lavish expenditure as the club backed manager Erik ten Hag, their miserable performance continues.

Throughout the window, Zirkzee, De Ligt, Ugarte, Leny Yoro, and Noussair Mazraoui came at Old Trafford. However, Scholes doesn’t think any of the first three can have a significant influence at the Red Devils.

He also questioned the roles of Hojlund and Martinez, both of whom have been signed since Ten Hag arrived. The United icon accused the current management of ‘relying on hope’ to get them results.

“In forward areas especially, I just don’t think the quality is there. We go back to the most successful teams, they’re capable of scoring goals. What have we scored? Five goals in seven games,” Scholes told SuperSport.

“Now we had three or four forwards who could get you 20 goals so you’re looking at 80 goals a season there and I just don’t see that in the forward line at Manchester United. Look, Hojlund does alright but is he gonna score you 20 goals? I don’t think so.

“Zirkzee… what is he? Is he a No.9 or a No.10? Is he going to get you 20 goals? I don’t think so. I think they’re relying more on hope than actual proven quality and they spent so much money as well.

“It’s a ridiculous amount of money and some of them can’t get in the team! You think of Ugarte coming into the club who was supposed to change the way the midfield was… he didn’t play him.

“De Ligt, £50m and he didn’t play him. Jonny Evans has come in at 36 years old instead of him. Martinez, Ten Hag brought him into the club. What’s he thinking today? Jonny Evans is playing, Maguire started, [Victor] Lindelof comes on before him. It’s just a recruitment mess really.”

Scholes admitted that he felt United got what they deserved from their trip to Villa Park. But he delivered a painful verdict of the Red Devils’ recruitment strategy over recent seasons.

“When you don’t have a style of play and you don’t know how to play, or the way you want to play, it’s very difficult to choose players. With Liverpool it was quite simple to buy, you know what you’ve got to do. They play 4-3-3 and you can recruit for that,” Scholes added.

“But when you don’t have a style of play, you don’t know how you’re going to play, it changes from week to week, you’re almost throwing balls in the air and saying, ‘He looks a good player, we’ll try and get him’.

“It’s a point for United, going to a tough ground under a lot of pressure. I never really felt like they went there to try and win the game. It was more of a survival tactic more than anything.

“But from everything we’ve said before the game, United were quite tough to play against today and you have to take into account the midweek fixtures. Villa had a big lift from Bayern Munich, winning that game, big atmosphere.

“They struggled to really live up that today. You could see they probably suffered a bit. For Manchester United, it’s difficult to go away in Europe on Thursday night and it was a tough game against Porto with ten men for some of the game so I think the game probably reflected the midweek that both clubs had.”