Everton’s last visit to Old Trafford prompted Ruben Amorim’s infamous ‘the storm is coming’ statement, even though his Manchester United side won 4-0. Twelve months on, their return brought more caution from Amorim about his team’s evolution that proved equally perceptive.
From a United perspective, the jaw-dropping clash between Idrissa Gueye and Michael Keane can be put aside, beyond the consequence of facing 10 men for 77 minutes. What followed, however, underlined Amorim’s pre-match view that his side is “far from perfection.”
For 77 minutes the United head coach watched his players toil. He saw young defenders Patrick Dorgu and Leny Yoro needlessly lose possession under no pressure as the home side tried to build attacks. He watched Amad Diallo take the wrong options when trying to cause problems, having come on as a number 10 replacement for the injured Matheus Cunha. He saw normally reliable figures – Bryan Mbeumo and Bruno Fernandes – fail to execute as chances went begging.
He watched Joshua Zirkzee, given his first start of the season, and Kobbie Mainoo, given an extended run as a second-half replacement for Casemiro, fail to press their claims for more minutes and to bolster their World Cup hopes. He also watched goalkeeper Senne Lammens make a questionable attempt to save Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s first-half effort that ultimately proved decisive. Zirkzee did force Jordan Pickford into a full-length save with a header near the end, but there was nothing more.
As Amorim had warned on Friday, a five-match unbeaten run can quickly turn into a three-game sequence without a win, with a trip to Crystal Palace to follow on Sunday. “I know which point we are in,” he said. “I have that feeling during this run. I always talk about that. We are not there, not even near the point we should be to fight for the best positions in the league. We have a lot to do and we need to be perfect to win games. We were not perfect today.”
Recapping United’s last three matches: at Nottingham Forest and Tottenham they had leads they could not hang on to. Had they kept those advantages, United would have been second in the ‘as it stands’ table. On both occasions they failed the test and needed late equalisers to salvage points after falling behind. This time, completing the Premier League round, United knew a win would take them fifth; matching last season’s result would have lifted them to fourth.
For 77 minutes, facing 10 men at home with that prize at stake, they lost. It was the first time Manchester United have lost a Premier League match at Old Trafford after the opposition received a red card; previously they had won 36 and drawn 10 of the previous 46 such games. “Old Trafford was there saying ‘we are all here to give a big step up’ and I felt that we were not ready,” he said. “Again, these five weeks, when everyone is praising our evolution, I’m always saying the same things. We are not even near what we’re supposed to be in this club.”
A year to the day since his first game – a 1-1 draw at Ipswich – the big question is how far away the team really is. This is a United side without European distractions, unlike Palace, who play less than three days before the Selhurst Park encounter. The club spent £250m in the summer trying to transform a group that had plunged to 15th last season. Now sitting 10th, in the middle of a cluster that includes Tottenham, Everton and Liverpool and just three points off the top four, where are United headed as they enter a run of fixtures that offers scope to collect points?
When they finished eighth under Erik ten Hag, it was regarded as unacceptable. “Frustration, disappointment,” Amorim said when asked to sum up what he had seen. “They were the better team. We deserved to lose. Twenty minutes in the game, red card for the opponent. We need to win this game no matter what.”
Amorim even agreed with David Moyes that the Gueye-Keane spat showed a welcome sign of desire — a quality he wants to see from his own team, minus the red card. “Fighting is not a bad thing,” he said. “Fighting doesn’t mean that they don’t like each other. Fighting is that you lose the ball and ‘I will fight you because we will suffer a goal’. I hope my players, when they lose the ball, fight each other.”
So, after the steps forward and a manager of the month award in October, November has seen regression. The identity of this Manchester United team remains unclear; Amorim appears to share that uncertainty. What he cannot allow is a slide back into last season’s pattern, when every game felt like a defeat waiting to happen and he approached matches with anxiety. “I feel afraid of returning of this feeling of last season,” he said. “That is my biggest concern. We need to work together. We are going to work together. The players are trying but we need to be better.”
