Manchester United’s misery rolls on and before long its momentum will drown yet another manager. Ruben Amorim is not improving this malfunctioning set of footballers and it’s only a matter of time before the ice breaks beneath his feet.
Amorim’s first anniversary looms and the numbers are damning. The Portuguese has amassed 34 points from his 33 games in charge in the Premier League. In the old days, they called that relegation form.
Here, as brave and energetic and ambitious Brentford turned them over, they were as fallible as they often are. New players, same mistakes.
Much is made of Amorim’s formation and way of playing and it’s a valid argument. He is inflexible to the point of self-harm.
But the truth is his players continue to exhibit basic failings. They don’t have positional discipline, they don’t track runners when teams break on them and they don’t do the Sunday League stuff either – winning headers and timing tackles.
So what exactly do they do? Largely they rely on adrenaline and short passages of progressive play. They rely on individual moments. Occasionally it gets them through and when it does, everybody trumpets change and improvement.
Igor Thiago scored a brace for Brentford in their victory over Manchester United
Ruben Amorim and Bruno Fernandes cut dejected figures in a familiar sight
Altay Bayindir watches on as the ball trickles over his line for Brentford’s second goal
But the reality is that it’s just a recipe for mediocrity and that is what United get. It is what they are. Mediocre, mid-table and miserable.
We have been watching this for years, not only on Amorim’s watch. But these are the afternoons that say much about a team. More than a scrappy home win over 10-man Chelsea, a visit to one of the country’s upwardly mobile clubs offers a real examination.
On days like this – when his team falls flat – it’s coaching failings that land at Amorim’s door.
And perhaps worst and most damning of all, Amorim admitted after this game that he had worked on all of these things in training during the week.
‘We played the way Brentford wanted us to play,’ Amorim said.
‘We never settled down. We worked on everything in the week. It’s frustrating. We need to have more personality and more calm.’
This, largely, was a game that was decided in an opening 20-minute period that saw Brentford score twice through their energetic forward Igor Thiago. The first was a stormer, the second the work of a pickpocket.
Goalkeeper Altay Bayindir was probably United’s best player but, in the eight minute, was as helpless as everybody else. Jordan Henderson – excellent throughout – drilled a long pass over the United back four, Harry Maguire probably could have headed it but didn’t. Instead he stepped up in a dismal bid to play Thiago offside.
Thiago’s opener was a thunderous effort with his left foot after a simple long ball
Nathan Collins gave away a penalty with the score at 2-1 but escaped a red card
Caoimhin Kelleher dived to his left and easily saved the spot-kick in the second half
Fernandes put his head in his hands after missing the huge chance to make it level
The Brentford forward was the right side of the margins and ran through to belt a rising drive high to Bayindir’s right and into the roof of the net. What a finish.
Brentford sensed United vulnerability. We all did.
Pretty soon Bayindir made two good saves from headers from Sepp van den Berg and Nathan Collins and at that stage they seemed as though they may keep his team in the game.
It wasn’t long, however, before the lumbering Matthijs de Ligt chose not to head away a pass down the left channel and when Thiago fed Kevin Schade, he made sure he was in the middle to slide in his second goal after Bayindir had pawed away the cross.
United were dizzy and although Brentford goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher offered them a way back – and a first United goal to Benjamin Sesko – with a mistake in the 26th minute – he was to redeem himself when he saved a Bruno Fernandes penalty with 15 minutes left.
Kelleher’s error was a basic one, flapping at Patrick Dorgu’s cross. He should have caught it or left it. He did neither and though he saved two shots as the ball fell loose, he couldn’t keep out the third.
Mathias Jensen scored a third for his side on the break with a powerful finish late on
The scenes of jubilation on the Brentford bench with Keith Andrews and Co contrasted with the visitors
United were better from that point on. They had more control. They played higher up the field. But they only threatened sporadically and when Fernandes missed the penalty, the game was gone from them.
Collins may have been sent off for dragging down Bryan Mbeumo and probably should have been. Credit to Amorim for not making a big deal of it afterwards. Fernandes, meanwhile, struck his penalty low to the goalkeeper’s left and Kelleher dived to claw it away, it was his fourth penalty save from seven faced in his career outside of shootouts.
With eight minutes added on, we awaited a kitchen draped sink in United’s colours but it didn’t come. Substitute Joshua Zirkzee drifted a header over but it was Brentford with the legs and when they broke from deep Yehor Yarmoliuk, provided the decoy and Mathias Jensen the powerful shot.
That was 3-1 and that was the game. Amorim has 34 points from 33 games over the course of almost a year and seven from six this season. Do the maths. It’s not getting better.
