Gary Neville has backed Chelsea’s choice to bring in two new players, while strongly criticising an earlier Manchester United decision that has now clearly looked like a mistake.

New Blues manager Xabi Alonso has taken a different route with signings compared with some of his predecessors. The plan under Todd Boehly until now has been to recruit young players who can help both immediately and in the long term.

However, Alonso is bringing in a pair of highly experienced players. Reports say Jordan Henderson, 36, has agreed to cancel his Brentford contract so he can join Chelsea, while a deal is also in place for 35-year-old striker Danny Welbeck.

Neville, speaking to Sky Sports, has indicated that the experience both players bring could prove extremely valuable.

He said: “It’s a big shift. It’s one we’ve all been asking for. If you’ve watched Chelsea over the last three, four or five years, I’ve said there’s inexperience right throughout the club, right from the ownership to the sporting department to the managers.

“So what you’ve got is a situation whereby there’s just no experience.

“I think by putting a spine in of good senior professionals that act as guardians of good behaviours, responsibilities, disciplines in the dressing room, it’s not magic, it’s something that all top teams have had for many, many decades.

“So putting in Jordan Henderson, who knows how to win a Premier League title, Danny Welbeck, who knows how to win a Premier League title… their job is as much off the pitch as it is on the pitch.

“They’re still good players, they can contribute maybe 25 to 35 games a season at a good level.

“But what they will do is all those young players there at Chelsea, they will make sure they turn up every single day, give their all, come back the same the next day and do it again.

“That’s been a problem. I don’t think the young players at Chelsea have had any particular guidance or leadership around them either on the pitch or off the pitch.

“They’ve now got people around them who can do that and know how to get around the block.”

Welbeck was sold by Neville’s former club United to Arsenal in 2014, before moving on to Watford and then Brighton, where he has spent the last six years and scored 51 goals, before his switch to Chelsea.

Neville believed United were wrong to let him go, and Welbeck has backed that view up in recent seasons.

He said: “I said ten [12] years ago that Manchester United should never have sold Danny Welbeck. He’s gone away and done brilliantly well.

“He’s coming into a little cameo at the end of his career but he’s a fantastic player.

“I worked with him obviously as a team-mate, I worked with him with England as a coach and he was fantastic for England. And he’s been good in the Premier League as well.

“It’s a good move for Chelsea and it gives them a real option up front.”