Ruben Amorim’s task to improve ‘mediocre Manchester United’
However, Amorim’s version of events in Lisbon does not entirely match.
Since taking office on March 4, 2020, Sporting Lisbon has won 6 and drawn 3 out of 11 games. Their two defeats came in the final three games of the Covid-19-interrupted season, away to Porto (where Amorim’s side lost 2-0) and Benfica (at a distance of Defeated the opponent 2-1 with a goal with two minutes left in the game).
“I spent this time at Sporting Lisbon and if you have a little bit of experience in football it happens to a lot of clubs,” he said. “We have to try to keep doing the same things and improve the team because things will turn around.”
Roughly 20 minutes after Amorim addressed the media on his side’s second defeat in four days following a 2-0 defeat at Arsenal, United sporting director Dan Ashworth walked from the directors’ lounge to the front gate of the stadium and walked through Press conference room. stadium.
Ashworth lowered his head and did not make eye contact with anyone present.
He is in a sticky situation. First under Erik ten Hag and now under Amorim, it has become increasingly clear that United’s squad is not good enough.
They simply couldn’t afford to score as they did against Forest, especially when goalkeeper Andre Onana inexplicably failed to read Morgan Gibbs-White’s shot from the edge of the area at the start of the second half.
Onana started to move to the right, but when the ball didn’t move in the same direction, the Cameroon international couldn’t shift his weight quickly enough and was beaten to the left.
Gibbs-White admits he expected Inter Milan’s £47.2million signing to “catch it” when the ball left his feet.
Amorim said: “Onana has saved us many times, so when this happens we have to find a way to turn around and score two goals to help our goalkeeper, like he did at Yip. Switch helps us.”
“As a team we lost and we have to improve in every aspect of the game.”
It would have been bad enough for United if Onana’s mistake had been the only mistake.
But as their manager warned them not to repeat the mistake at the Emirates Stadium, they conceded twice from set-pieces and Nikola Milenkovic beat Lysander at the near post two minutes later. Ronaldo Martinez and they immediately conceded again. Headed in from Forest’s first corner.
Then, as they tried to recover from Onana’s error, neither the goalkeeper nor Matthijs de Ligt attempted to deal with Chris Wood’s far post header, which bounced past them and Martinez let the ball go. Past him and into the net. .
