Enduring nothing short of relegation form since succeeding Erik ten Hag at Manchester United, Ruben Amorim has a mammoth task on his hands to try and oversee a respectable end to the season at Old Trafford.
Last night’s narrow defeat to Tottenham Hotspur saw the Reds drop down to 15th-placed in the table – eight points adrift of Brighton and Hove Albion, who currently occupy 10th.
As such, the prospect of sealing a late top-half finish is now slipping further out of Amorim’s grasp with every passing game, and with fixtures against an in-form Everton and title-chasing Arsenal on the horizon, you can only question how the rankings will look come the March international break.
When reacting to Sunday’s affairs in North London, Michael Owen cherry-picked three players for criticism after their shoddy attempts to keep Spurs at bay, with James Maddison breaking the deadlock inside just 15 minutes.
Amorim has three players getting away with murder at the back
“What frustrates me more than anything about the Manchester United team is that those centre-halves (Harry Maguire, Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui) do nothing during the game,” said the ex-Red on Premier League Productions, as cited by the Metro.
“They hardly pick up any players at all, yet when you ask them to do one job – stop the guy who’s shooting – they’re sleeping at that as well.
“We’ve seen so many clips in the first half when there’s nobody to pick up. There are three of them literally doing nothing. They won’t push in, they won’t go and mark anybody, they just sit there.”
“It’s the easiest position on the pitch in theory because they’re asked to do nothing,” Owen continued. “The manager plays so many defenders, and none of them are picking anyone up.
“The midfield for Manchester United has to be the hardest place to play in the Premier League, and the defence should be the easiest because they literally mark no one, ever. They sit there doing nothing, and everyone else is outnumbered all over the pitch.”
I am an expat been living in Australia for 50 years.Every year since i have made the trip to the UK three times a year to watch MUFC,my trip in March has been cancelled who wants to watch this rubbish.MUFC the greatest football club in the world have been slowly dismantled by INEOS,request the Saudi PIF to buy the club and start fresh.
Ted Lasso is taking EVERYONE down.
The Saudi PIF are the only ones who can save us now. Get the Sheik back interested and get this great club back where it belongs. The Glazers and now Ineos are bleeding us dry. We can’t buy players and yet prices to see our team are rising and hundreds of people being sacked from their jobs.
We need the Saudis to save us and get these leeches out.