United's false start at Ipswich illustrates job facing Amorim
Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim is interviewed following the Premier League match at Portman Road. Pic: Bradley Collyer/PA Wire.
To alter the wise words of Captain Blackadder only slightly, Ruben Amorim's first game as Manchester United manager started superbly, tailed off a little straight after and the less said about the final 80 minutes the better. Apart from that - excellent!
Marcus Rashford scored from the game's first attack but then became the perfect example of why Amorim has a massive job on his hands.
Ipswich were the better side and only the sharpness of goalkeeper Andre Onana prevented Kieran McKenna's side, ranked 18th in the table and with just one Premier League win since 2002, from adding to Omari Hutchinson's deserved equaliser.
Amorim became accustomed to winning at Sporting Lisbon, where all 11 league games before his departure to succeed Erik ten Hag at Old Trafford were victories. United, now on their sixth boss since Alex Ferguson stepped down as a champion in 2013, have long since lost that habit.
Amorim, in his quest to solve a problem his mentor Jose Mourinho could not, knows the magnitude of his task if he did not before.
"They are really trying," he said of his players afterwards, presumably unaware of that phrase's double meaning.
Picking Rashford over Rasmus Hojlund given the England man's previous patchy form seemed a gamble and a half. The Three Lions have given up on him, for anow at least, and he also spent most of the international break swanning around New York.
Yet it paid off after just 81 seconds.
Amad Diallo, given a go at right wing-back, went on a supercharged sprint that left challengers trailing, Town goalkeeper Aro Muric opted not to come for the cross and Rashford applied the coup de grace at the near post.
Amorim's reaction? With the smile of a man who had just won a tenner on the lottery. Presumably he knew what was coming...
United duly showed why they had been in need of a new manager - with Rashford as guilty as anyone as he disappeared for the next hour.
Ipswich, with celebrity fan Ed Sheeran in the stands, took a breath and hit back with pace of their own. Wes Burns was too nippy for Diogo Dalot and Ireland's Sammie Szmodics saw a curler batted away by Onana.
Ipswich remained the men more likely before the break despite an Alejandro Garnacho effort that skimmed wide. Hutchinson smacked a free-kick at Onana after 36-year-old Jonny Evans had crunched Liam Delap - who really should have levelled five minute before the break.
With VAR down because of a Stockley Park fire alarm, the summer signing from Manchester City failed to beat Onana from seven yards, with the keeper sticking out his right arm to make a top-class reflex save.
Hutchinson showed Delap how to finish in the 43rd minute on receiving the ball on the edge of the box from Burns. The former Chelsea man let rip a fierce left-footed drive that took a fateful deflection off the head of Noussair Mazraoui and at last Onana was beaten.
Amorim's reaction this time was a thorough rubbing of his beard; the bad habits of ten Hag's time - dropping too deep and not putting in enough legwork - may take a while to eradicate. He came out early for the second half and sat waiting in his dugout looking less than impressed.
United almost scored early again as Garnacho nipped in behind straight away but Muric got enough on the shot and a defender hacked away.
United soon needed Onana again however, to block Delap's clever flick from all of four yards out. The striker, a throwback to a more robust age, began the move himself with a turn to lose Matthias de Ligt and a burst forward legs and arms pumping alarmingly.
Amorim had seen enough and made two changes before the hour mark with Evans and Casemiro hooked for Luke Shaw and Manuel Ugarte. Two more followed and it was no surprise that Rashford made way for Hojlund, with Joshua Zikzee replacing the tiring Christian Eriksen.
Bruno Fernandes, felled by Sam Morsy, curled the resulting free-kick inches wide before Mason Mount came on for the last few minutes, in which United needed Onana yet again, to deny substitute Conor Chaplin.
The final whistle saw Amorim flap his arms briefly in frustration - but he will already have a pretty good idea who he can rely upon in the future, and who he can't.
: Muric 7; Tuanzebe 7, O'Shea 8, Burgess 7, Davis 6; Morsy 7, Cajuste 7 (Taylor 65, 5); Burns 6 (Chaplin 82, 3), Szmodics 7 (J Clarke 65, 5), Hutchinson 8; Delap 7 (Al-Hamadi 82, 3).
: Walton, H Clarke, Woolfenden, Townsend, Luongo.
: Onana 9; Mazraoui 7, Evans 6 (Shaw 56, 6), de Ligt 6; Diallo 8, Casemiro 6 (Ugarte 56, 6), Eriksen 6 (Zirkzee 68, 4), Dalot 6; Fernandes 7, Rashford 6 (Hojland 68, 4), Garnacho 7 (Mount 86, 3).
: Bayindir, Malacia, Antony, Mainoo.
: Anthony Taylor 6
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