Amorim saves job in ‘must-win’ game to beg Manchester United question: was all the ‘suffering’ necessary?
When Ruben Amorim prophesised after his first match in charge of Manchester United that “we are going to suffer for a long period,” he perhaps didn’t realise he was issuing the most egregious understatement in human history.
Before Saturday, that 1-1 draw against Ipswich 314 days ago was the last time Manchester United scored in the opening ten minutes of a Premier League game. And an inability to start strong ranks absurdly low on the list of causes for these unnecessarily agonising year-long growing pains.
But Manchester United failing to build on those leads or even just capitalise on brief moments of ascendancy has been an infuriating trait. So too their incompetence in simply trying to keep a clean sheet.
No-one will be foolish enough to read too far into a 2-0 win over Sunderland secured through goals in the eighth and 31st minutes, buttressed by a stable and secure defensive platform. Not when the infernal search for consecutive Premier League wins will take in a visit to Anfield after the international break.
Yet this was the club’s best performance of the season in a ‘must-win’ game for the manager.
It is, of course, heartening that this Manchester United hierarchy might still be making decisions based on the circumstances of one fixture. If one stunning FA Cup final can keep Erik ten Hag in employment well beyond the glaringly obvious end of his road, setting this eternal restoration project back at least another year or so, then why shouldn’t a home win over promoted opposition secure Amorim’s future for the remainder of the season?
Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the INEOS brains trust would ideally never learn any lessons ever, perennially extending this exasperating process by ignoring every issue and clinging to all potential positives.
Sure, Old Trafford is surrounded by myriad dumpster fires but at least they’re generating enough light and warmth to save on the energy bill and avert any further redundancies.
It should be said that this was a rare break from the “suffering”. Manchester United were competent against Sunderland. Good, even. Great at times. Mason Mount continues to prove himself to be any manager’s favourite player, Amad and Bryan Mbeumo have formed a tantalising link on the right, and Benjamin Sesko needed only one gilt-edged chance rather than three in succession to score.
And on his Premier League debut, Senne Lammens kept the club’s first clean sheet of the season. He was hardly needed to produce the sort of volume of saves which attracted Manchester United to his ability in the first place, but one confident claim from a high Noah Sadiki cross was greeted with rapturous applause and very possibly a few disbelieving supporters fainting in the stands.
Robin Roefs was once again more outwardly impressive at the other end, tipping a wonderful Bruno Fernandes effort onto the bar in his most eye-catching stop. But Manchester United twice found a way through one of the better defensive teams in this myriad Premier League season and wholly deserved their win.
It is vanishingly rare that everything Amorim touches turns to gold. But the Lammens call, bringing Leny Yoro in for Harry Maguire, even dropping Matheus Cunha for Mount were all vindicated.
Kobbie Mainoo got his 13-minute cameo, Casemiro was substituted before he was given the opportunity to get stupidly sent off, and Amorim managed to both have and eat his cake with a trademark centre-half swap with five minutes remaining as Sunderland laboured to find anything resembling a foothold.
Regis Le Bris even felt compelled to alter his system in the first half to match the hosts with the introduction of large Dan Ballard. Amorim, for once, had no reason to follow suit.
He knows “results dictate everything”. Amorim had ventured into the ever so slightly desperate before the game with his controversial rework of a John Lennon classic, saying: “Imagine if we had won the first game against Arsenal, hadn’t missed the penalty, and had won against Fulham even without playing well.”
His basic point was that winning breeds confidence and fine margins have often been the difference. But it is gloriously quaint to hear the manager of Manchester United essentially say: “Imagine if we had just won these games.”
This weekend and over the international break, they need no such creative thinking. An entirely routine, straightforward victory with no suffering in sight might be the most significant result of Amorim’s reign yet.
