Former Manchester United assistant Carlos Queiroz has hit out at David Moyes and Louis van Gaal for the way they handled the transition from Alex Ferguson and accused the club of panic buying.

Queiroz enjoyed two spells as assistant – his second coming on the back an unsuccessful stint with Real Madrid - to Ferguson, who retired from management in 2013 after winning 38 trophies with United.

Successor Moyes was sacked before the end of his first season, which United eventually finished in seventh, with Van Gaal coming in to lead them back to the Champions League in unconvincing fashion the following year.

Queiroz told The Guardian: "I have great admiration and respect for Louis [van Gaal] and David [Moyes], they are great coaches that I admire but I think they made some critical and crucial mistakes in the transition from Alex."

Criticising Moyes' changes to the coaching staff, he said: "It was not necessary to turn everything upside down with the staff with people like Mike Phelan, people that know the insides of the club.

"I learned with people like Bobby Charlton and Alex this magnificent lesson that you must trust your own people. 

"There are no other people in a better position than your own people to know what to do. No other people could be better prepared to make the right decisions in terms of continuity … we need to see some leadership.

"I hope and expect this season that Manchester United is able to not only compete, to win but to win in style because that is what Manchester United is about, winning with style and entertainment.

"A club like Manchester, with its financial capabilities, the results must be there immediately. We also want to see the players shining. Great players like [George] Best, [Paul] Scholes, [Ryan] Giggs, [Roy] Keane, [Ruud] Van Nistelrooy – where are they? Where are the stars of Manchester United?

"It was always about creating players. Now it is the opposite. And even some of the players that arrived in the team like [Radamel] Falcao and [Angel] Di Maria were on the bench. 

"I saw Di Maria and some games, he looked like he has never played football. There is panic buying. You have to prepare and then make the decisions together. You can still make wrong decisions but we never made panic decisions when buying players."