LONDON — Ruben Amorim spent Friday afternoon at Manchester United’s Carrington training center talking about the possibility of ticking off his first back-to-back Premier League wins and finally injecting some momentum into his reign.
A little over 24 hours later, he was sat in the media theatre at Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium — grim-faced and almost grey with anguish — mulling over another defeat and facing questions about whether he’s still the right man to take this team forward.
There is momentum yes, but not in the direction Amorim wants.
The Portuguese coach has been in charge for 11 months and it was a day that had the feeling of being back to square one. Brentford more than deserved their 3-1 win. It would have been more had it not been for a string of saves from Altay Bayindir.
There was a sliding doors moment in the second half when Bruno Fernandes had the chance to make it 2-2 from the penalty spot, but saw his kick saved by Caoimhín Kelleher. Nathan Collins was fortunate he wasn’t sent off for pulling back Bryan Mbeumo.
Instead, United were made to pay for a disastrous first 20 minutes during which they went 2-0 down. It was followed by a mostly lifeless second-half display, despite Benjamin Sesko’s first goal for the club handing them a lifeline on 26 minutes.
Rather than getting the chance to talk about consecutive victories and a small step forward, Amorim was left to sift through the rumble of more damning statistics.
In his 33 Premier League games, United have won nine, kept five clean sheets and acquired just 34 points. They haven’t won away from home in the league since March.
“When you win you feel that the momentum is here,” Amorim said. “When you lose, you go back to the same place and you fight again for one win that can help you to create the momentum.
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“I’m always doing my job. If I win, I’m in a different state of mind. That is normal. But I’m always confident because I know what to do.”
If Amorim still has confidence in himself, it remains to be seen whether United’s board retains the same faith. If nothing else, there’s a big decision on the horizon for co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his assortment of executives if results do not turn around quickly.
Brentford and Keith Andrews have cranked up the pressure another notch ahead of Sunderland’s visit to Old Trafford next weekend.
“I’m just trying to win the next game, create again the momentum,” Amorim insisted. “That’s it.”
United kicked off against Brentford as one of only four Premier League teams without a clean sheet so far this season. And it took the home side just eight minutes to show why.
Jordan Henderson heaved a long ball forward from almost the edge of his own area. Harry Maguire decided against dealing with it himself and attempted to step up to catch Igor Thiago offside. All Maguire succeeded in doing was leaving the Brentford striker with acres of space to smash his finish past Bayindir.
Amorim’s team were so vulnerable that they needed the Turkey international to keep the score respectable with two stunning saves — first from Sepp van den Berg and then Collins.
Bayindir should have done better for Brentford’s second goal, but his error — pushing Kevin Schade’s cross into Thiago’s path — was just one in a catalogue of mistakes by the team as a whole. Matthijs de Ligt, so good against Chelsea, and Diogo Dalot won’t want to see the replay. They weren’t alone in making costly errors.
At 2-0 down after 20 minutes, the 1,700 travelling fans were having flashbacks of the 4-0 mauling they got here in Erik ten Hag’s second game in charge, in August 2022. It’s been more than three years since, Ten Hag has been replaced with Amorim, and yet many of the same problems are still there. Most notably in midfield. United were outnumbered three-on-two and at times left gaping holes in the middle of the pitch.
At one point in the second half, Fernandes and Manuel Ugarte tried to press Brentford into their bottom right corner and when the ball was manoeuvred out, it left Matheus Cunha on his own as the deepest midfielder to fend off a counter-attack.
United’s decision not to sign a midfielder in the summer is looking more and more misguided by the week.
Perhaps they should have made a move for Henderson, who joined Brentford as a free agent in July. He went off here to a standing ovation from the home fans after controlling the game from the base of midfield.
Henderson was never allowed to forget his links with Liverpool by the United fans, who were tucked into the corner of the stadium. But as he walked off in the 81st minute, you imagine some of them would have been muttering that, even at 35 years old, Henderson is a more useful option than Ugarte, the player United signed for more than £50 million a little over a year ago.
“We play this game like Brentford wants to play this game,” Amorim said. “With long balls, second balls and we never settle down our game. We suffered goals in transition that we knew during the week and worked on that. The frustration is that every goal, the goals today, we work on that during the week. That is frustrating.”
And perhaps, amid all the other problems, that’s Amorim’s biggest worry. He insisted afterward that United had prepared all week for Brentford’s game-plan and knew what was coming. They still couldn’t cope.
It will leave United fans, and possibly Ratcliffe, to wonder why it will be different in the week leading up to the now critical game against Sunderland. After the international break, United’s next game is away to Liverpool.
The absence of midweek games in Europe was supposed to speed up the progress. If anything, United look like a team going backward. For Amorim, the pressure is mounting.