Sanchez has to ‘improve’ insists United great Scholes

Manchester United great Paul Scholes has warned Alexis Sanchez he must improve following his lacklustre display in Saturday’s FA Cup final defeat by Chelsea, saying his performances “can’t get any worse”.Former United midfielder Scholes singled out Chile international Sanchez for criticism after a match United lost 1-0 at Wembley, with Chelsea playmaker Eden Hazard scoring the only goal of the game from the penalty spot.United may have finished second in the Premier League table but that still left them a huge 19 points behind champions and local rivals Manchester City. And Scholes, a key member of Alex Ferguson’s trophy-winning teams at Old Trafford, said the likes of former Arsenal favourite Sanchez had to raise their game if United were to close the gap to City next season.“His performances, well they have to improve,” Scholes said. “They can’t get any worse to be honest with you. I think the next few games of next season are vital to him, he needs to get fans believing again and believing they are going to get close to City. They need a big player. Paul Pogba does not win you games on his own. Hazard does. “Alexis Sanchez doesn’t, he’s shown that since January, they thought he could, but what we’ve seen... They need two magical players. I think they’ve got really good players, they haven’t got a Hazard, (Cristiano) Ronaldo, (Lionel) Messi, and I know many teams haven’t, but the difference between the two was the quality in Hazard, we saw that in big games. United don’t have that.”Payet’s WC snub on TV irks player’s motherFrance coach Didier Deschamps has faced criticism for not personally informing Marseille forward Dimitri Payet he would not be going to the World Cup — from the player’s mother. Asked on TF1’s Telefoot show if her son had been personally informed by Deschamps that he was not part of the plans for Russia 2018, she replied: “No. He found out watching on television like everyone else, with the family.”Deschamps said the failure to call the forward, who had been prominent in the Euro 2016 campaign, had been a logistical one. “I had a list of 23 players to deliver and many things to do so with the limited time I had, unhappily for Dimitri Payet I didn’t get round to it,” the coach explained.Payet was far from alone as Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema, Manchester United forward Anthony Martial and Arsenal’s Alexander Lacazette were all left off a multi-talented roster. Antoine Griezmann will lead France’s attack, most likely alongside Kylian Mbappe or Olivier Giroud. Strikers Ousmane Dembele (Barcelona), Nabil Fekir (Lyon) and Florian Thauvin (Marseille) all provide solid back-up options.England to prep players for eventual racism in RussiaEngland are to receive advice on how to deal with potential racist incidents they may encounter at the upcoming World Cup in Russia, according to manager Gareth Southgate. There are concerns that racism has become endemic within Russian football and earlier this month the country’s football association was fined 30,000 Swiss francs (25,000 euros) by global governing body FIFA following racist chants by supporters during a friendly international against France in March.France’s Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba and Barcelona winger Ousmane Dembele were the target of monkey chants during their side’s 3-1 win over Russia in Saint Petersburg. “We work with our players on how we will support each other if anything like that was to happen,” said Southgate.“There would be some official protocol to follow if it did happen but we really hope it is a situation that doesn’t emerge, and that it’s a festival of football we are talking about on the pitch and not talking about things off the field.”England open their World Cup campaign against Tunisia in Volgograd on June 18.