A historic victory for a catalytic Portuguese manager at Old Trafford. Just what Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the powerbrokers who headhunted Ruben Amorim imagined, but for one minor detail. The winner was not their glamorous newcomer but the unfashionable figure of Nuno Espirito Santo, who has steered Nottingham Forest to heights few dared to think they could touch. As for Amorim, his honeymoon period seems fleeting. The problems at Manchester United, it appears, could only be concealed for three matches.
Since then, Amorim has suffered back-to-back defeats. If losing at Arsenal had a logic, being beaten by Forest at Old Trafford was the sort of chastening setback that happened all too often in Erik ten Hag’s final 14 months in charge. Amorim’s United displayed familiar flaws and new shortcomings, contributing to their own downfall with individual errors, slow starts and set-piece failings. Much as in Ten Hag’s unravelling, United were too open, too liable to be counterattacked and left the midfield too empty. Some of this was Ten Hag-style chaos.
Yet while the Dutchman’s team had a multitude of failings, defending dead-ball situations was not a marked weakness. Yet Nikola Milenkovic’s early opener was a third goal United conceded from corners in barely 40 minutes of football, following Arsenal’s double; when Jota Silva headed against the bar and Murillo shot wide after a free kick and a corner respectively, it underlined United have an issue. “It is more my fault because I am responsible,” said Amorim, who also sought to shield his goalkeeper from blame. Andre Onana had gone from problem to solution, from weak link last autumn to arguably United’s player of this season so far. Then came an unwelcome return to his awful start to his United career, an almost inexplicable blunder for Forest’s second goal. Factor in a similarly needless misjudgement by Lisandro Martinez for the third and United could trace defeat to themselves.
Yet Forest are equally entitled to argue they earned victory. “We were brave,” said Nuno. His side arrived with ambition and incision and were rewarded for each with a first win at Old Trafford for three decades. Stuart Pearce and Stan Collymore were the match-winners in 1994, Milenkovic, Morgan Gibbs-White and Chris Wood in 2024. A team who have already triumphed at Anfield this season now have another flagship success on the road. The table suggests neither is a fluke. Forest are fifth, United 13th: at the start of the campaign, the assumption might have been that it would be the other way around. “This is a long journey,” said Amorim. “We already know it’s a big job.”
His return so far has been slender, with four points from four games, the same number Ten Hag got from his last four. Forest scored in the second minute of each half. While the first goal of Amorim’s reign, by Marcus Rashford at Ipswich, came after 81 seconds, here Milenkovic struck after just 91. It was all too easy, Martinez barely challenging the giant Serbian as he headed in Elliot Anderson’s corner. Milenkovic deserved a status as one of the signings of the summer even before opening his Forest account in such a seismic win.
United contributed plenty to the entertainment with their attacking and levelled. It may have been a glimpse of Amorim’s vision, too, with a passing move from back to front. Rasmus Hojlund’s third goal since his appointment was made by Manuel Ugarte, with the sort of defence-splitting pass he was not expected to provide. He found Alejandro Garnacho and while the Argentinian’s shot was saved by Mats Sels, Hojlund swept in the rebound. But, with United docile and Forest dominant, the game was decided right after the interval. “At half-time we were ready to go for the win and then started really bad,” said Amorim. There were two goals in seven minutes and two major mistakes. First Gibbs-White’s shot from 20 yards was skimming and swerving but nevertheless central. It somehow beat Onana. “When I had the shot, I thought he was going to pick it up,” admitted the scorer. That was how simple it seemed.
And Wood had just spurned a chance for a third, stabbing a shot wide, when he put Forest further ahead. This time the guilty party was Martinez, seeming to think the striker’s looping header was going past the post. It instead nestled in the net to make Wood Forest’s record scorer in the Premier League and give him a goal on his 33rd birthday. For United, much of the afternoon revolved around their skipper until, suddenly and strangely, he was withdrawn. There was a cruelty for Fernandes that his misplaced backheel led to Forest’s second goal. But he had hit the bar in the first half, Sels doing superbly to apply a crucial touch to his free kick. He scored in the second, burying a shot from the lively Amad Diallo’s cutback.
If there was to be a United comeback, it seemed, it would have to come from the captain. Yet he was substituted. “Bruno is really a danger near the box, he scores a goal but Bruno is tired,” said Amorim, but it left United looking incoherent for the quarter of an hour before injury time. They ended that with their pride stung, with another defeat and a further illustration that it takes more than a change of manager to fix a club Ratcliffe had described as mediocre and not elite. It was damning, but probably not wrong.