The former Red Devils defender was alarmed by the pitiful 3-0 Premier League loss to Tottenham at the weekend and questioned why the team "panic" whenever they let in a goal.

Ferdinand told TNTSports: "I think at the moment when Man United lose a goal, they seem to panic, the confidence is low. Am I surprised? Not really, obviously disappointed, but expected better, expected more, and I thought it wasn’t a performance where you’d go, ‘that’s the standard.’"

The former United player is unable to recognise a style of play from Erik ten Hag's team and says that the performance against Spurs was "poor" even before captain Bruno Fernandes was shown a red card.

He said: "Two or three games before this one, I was saying I could see a little bit of improvement in areas with and without the ball. But unfortunately, in the last couple of games, we've fallen back into what we saw last season.

"It’s a bit unpredictable in what United are doing defensively especially, and no real big picture in the way that they’re playing. You can’t look at it and go ‘that’s Man United’s style of play’ at the moment.

"I don’t think the red card had any bearing. I think we were poor before that. First half especially with and without the ball, very poor."

Ferdinand was particularly disappointed by the way United let Spurs defender Micky van de Ven charge down the pitch to set up the first goal - especially as they had conceded in a similar fashion in the Europa League clash with FC Twente in the previous match.

He said: "Obviously Van de Ven ran through the whole team and that happened against FC Twente in midweek. And you think wow, if it happened once, you don’t see that twice in a season, let alone two in two games. Disappointing from that front."