Ability to recover a pleasing aspect for Amorim
Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim gestures on the touchline.
A YEAR into a job he looked destined to lose as recently as the start of last month, Ruben Amorim summed up the strides his side has taken over the past four games, as they came back from a 2-1 deficit to draw.
Is this the sort of game United would have lost last season, or even at the start of this, the Portuguese manager was asked.
“Yeah.” he replied without hesitation. “By more goals, I think. That is my feeling.”
And that, in a nutshell, not only sums up the improvements shown over a four-match unbeaten spell by the fallen giants of the English game, but also demonstrates how low the bar is these days, in terms of expectations at Old Trafford.
Three wins and a draw over a span of four games represents the sort of run that, in their heyday, Alex Ferguson’s United would have taken for granted but, these days, looks like trophy-winning form.
And, who knows, that may well prove to be the case; even this season, if United stay injury-free and manage some favourable FA Cup draws along the way.
Similarly, in the current climate, a top six, or even eight, finish this season would represent a vast improvement for Amorim’s team and bring with it European qualification.
That target no longer looks overly optimistic for Amorim and his team on current form. The confidence his side showed in coming back from 2-1 down to equalise with a late, superb strike from Amad Diallo is the most glaring, not to mention rapid and unexpected, improvement of the past month.
“The confidence, of course, is completely different,” said Amorim. “We came from three good games and we have a different confidence. We understand each other better. We talk more about this.
“Football is like that. And we proved this year. We can have bad moments, but suddenly we have three good games. So football is like that. And a game is like that also. We have good moments, we score. You can sense that we have control of the game when the first half finishes.
“We start the second half and we suffer. We disconnect for five minutes and that's enough in the Premier League. But we managed to recover from that and that's a good feeling.”
Diallo, whose goal cancelled out those two early second half effort from Morgan Gibbs-White and Nicolo Savona, is an interesting case in point; a player whose stop-start United career now appears ready to fully blossom.
The specific problem for the 23-year-old Ivory Coast winger is that the only place for him in Amorim’s sacred 3-4-3 system is at wing-back where his defensive frailties are often targeted - as Gibbs-White proved by easily out-jumping him as his goal equalised Casemiro’s first half opener.
On the plus side, his pairing on the right with summer signing Bryan Mbeumo is looking increasingly promising.
“I think we have a good relationship, especially because he speaks French,” said Diallo. "So we are trying to have that relationship, not only on the pitch but even outside the pitch, to have that connection. He's a good guy, he's a humble guy. He works very hard in training.
“I think now the players are getting better and better every game. When you win, you always have confidence. So the players are starting to learn this system with the manager. Because we are playing in a new system, we have to learn.
“I think we can get better every game, every day. We are training very hard and I hope we can bring this club to the next level.”
Amorim, demanding as ever, clearly also feels he could be getting more out of Diallo, not withstanding the magnificent technique his star displayed in volleying his team’s second goal.
Many - including, perhaps even Amorim - felt that Diallo could have already been substituted by the time he hit his 81st minute equaliser.
“I know that Amad can do so much better, but I know that Ahmad, one against one, is really dangerous,” said Amorim. “So sometimes we just expect that one guy that is not doing a great game can change the game for us. He managed to score, but again, we have potential to do so much better and we lost two points to them.”
And therein lies one of the major problems Amorim is currently facing as he oversees what looks like having the potential to be an impressive turnaround season.
Not only are there still glaring inadequacies in his precious system - notably at both wing-back positions - but, also, a shocking lack of depth on the bench.
Long-term injury victim Lisandro Martinez is the only current absentee from Amorim's squad but, as he sought that equaliser at the City Ground, his creative and attacking options were limited to Mason Mount, Kobbie Mainoo and Joshua Zirkzee - who scored a combined four league goals last season, and none of whom he brought on.
Publicly, at least, Amorim insists he is not concerned by that apparent flaw in his squad construction.
“It’s not (about) the quality, because we have a lot of quality on the bench,” said Amorim. “But sometimes I have the feeling if I'm going to stop the game all the time, I'm going to break something. And I think we were improving during the second half. So my feeling was I'm not changing anything in the guys in front. We have the talent at that, maybe.”
Sels 6; Savona 7, Milenkovic 6, Murillo 7, Williams 6; Anderson 8, Luiz 6 (Yates 14, 7); Ndoye 7, Gibbs-White 7, Hudson-Odoi 7 (Sangare 90); Jesus 7 (Awoniyi 77, 5).
Lammens 6; Yoro 5 (Mazrouai 77, 5), de Ligt 6, Shaw 7; Diallo 6, Casemiro 8, Fernandes 7, Dalot 5 (Dorgu 68, 5); Mbeumo 7, Cunha 6; Sesko 5.
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