Manchester United legend Paul Scholes says Jose Mourinho engineered his sacking last month.

Scholes was Mourinho's fiercest critic throughout his two-and-a-half-year reign with the pair often verbally jousting in public.

"I felt he (Mourinho) didn't want to be there," he told TV2. "He engineered his move away perfectly in the end.

"His press conferences were embarrassing, so negative, it was obvious in the end the players didn't want to play for him. The right thing happened in the end."

The former United midfielder said he suspected that Mourinho might be trying to find a way out of Old Trafford when he fell out with club captain Antonio Valencia, who Scholes played alongside from 2009 to 2013.

Scholes said: "He fell out with Antonio Valencia who is the nicest man in the world. It's impossible to fall out with Antonio Valencia.

"That was a big sign for me that something wasn't quite right."

And Scholes also defended his often scathing analysis of Mourinho and his tactics, particularly in the final few months of his reign.

"I was just being honest about the questions put to me and what I was seeing from the manager," he said.

"He started complaining very early on in pre-season, saying the kids weren't good enough, which I didn't like from the start."