On the day co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe called Manchester United “mediocre” in an interview with popular club fanzine ‘United We Stand’, the team unfortunately reinforced the assessment with their on-pitch performance.
As many were quick to point out, Nottingham Forest’s victory at Old Trafford was not “a shock” given Nuno Espirito’s men started the game higher in the table.
Nevertheless, it was something Forest had not achieved in almost 30 years. And, at expectation level at least, Old Trafford’s ambitions are more lofty than those at the City Ground. Their aim is to eventually win the Premier League and compete strongly in the Champions League.
How realistic that is in the short-term is anyone’s guess. On this evidence, not very.
Asked for his view on his first few weeks as United manager (five games with two victories, only one of which has come in the Premier League) and results that are alien to him – his old club Sporting had won 16 games out of 17 before United prised him to England – Amorim said the perceptions were not true.
“I had this and worse in Sporting in the beginning,” he said. “The feeling for me is the same but for the world it’s completely different.
“You know Sporting in Portugal but Manchester [United] has a lot of attention.”
Yet Amorim’s version of events in Lisbon doesn’t quite stack up.
After taking charge on 4 March 2020, Sporting won six out of their 11 games and drew three. Their two defeats came in the final three games of a campaign interrupted by Covid-19 in away games against FC Porto, when Amorim’s team lost 2-0, and Benfica, when they were beaten 2-1 by a goal two minutes from time.
“I had this period at Sporting and if you are a little experienced in football this happens with a lot of clubs,” he said. “We have to manage to continue to do the same things and improve the team because this will turn around.”
About 20 minutes before Amorim addressed the media on his side’s second defeat in four days following the 2-0 result at Arsenal, United sporting director Dan Ashworth headed through the press conference room on his way from the directors’ lounge to the front exit of the stadium.
Ashworth kept his head down and did not make eye contact with those present.
He is in a tricky spot. First under Erik ten Hag and now Amorim, it is becoming apparent United’s squad is not good enough.
They simply cannot afford to gift the opposition goals the way they did to Forest, in particular goalkeeper Andre Onana’s inexplicable failure to read Morgan Gibbs-White’s shot from the edge of the area at the start of the second half.
Onana began to move to his right but when the ball did not go in the same direction, the Cameroon international was unable to shift his weight quickly enough and was beaten to his right.
Gibbs-White admitted when the ball left his foot, he expected the £47.2m signing from Inter Milan to “pick it up”.
“Onana already saved us a lot of times so we have to find a way, when this happens, to turn around and score two goals to help our goalkeeper, in the same way he helped us at Ipswich,” said Amorin.
“We lose as a team and we have to improve in all aspects of the game.”
If Onana’s error had been the only one, it would have been bad enough for United.
But, with a warning from their manager ringing in their ears about not repeating the errors of the Emirates Stadium, when they conceded twice at set-pieces, they promptly did it again after two minutes when Nikola Milenkovic outmuscled Lisandro Martinez at the near post and headed home from Forest’s first corner.
Then, as they tried to clear their heads from Onana’s blunder, neither the keeper, not Matthijs de Ligt made an attempt to deal with Chris Wood’s far-post header as it bounced across them and Martinez let the ball go past him and into the net.
‘It will be a long journey’
Under two managers – and an interim in Ruud van Nistelrooy – United have now made their worst start after 15 games since 1986-87. They have a visit to Manchester City to come next weekend before a pre-Christmas meeting with in-form Bournemouth.
Under normal circumstances, Amorim could look for solutions when the transfer window opens next month.
Yet, as is well known, United are in Profit and Sustainability strife – they spent over £21m in getting rid of Ten Hag and bringing Amorim in – as a legacy of their woeful recent recruitment.
It hardly merited a mention that Brazilian wide-man Antony did not make the squad for this game. But at £81.3m, Antony is the second most expensive player in the club’s history. There is no greater example of the profligacy of what has gone before. If United can sell him, it will be for a fraction of what they paid for him.
Amorim must deal with this and try to instil a new way of playing into his squad – and, as he knows, win some matches. It is not a wide path he has to navigate.
“We already knew [it would be tough],” he said. “It will be a long journey but we want to win because this is a massive club.
“You feel it. When you lose one game it’s really hard for everybody. I can understand that. I can feel it in the stadium after the first goal.
“We understand the context but we have to keep doing the same things.”