MANCHESTER, England — Forget Arsenal.
This game showed head coach Ruben Amorim just how big a job he’s got on his hands at Manchester United. It was almost expected that United would go to the Emirates and lose. They are, after all, two teams at very different stages in their development. On the other hand, Nottingham Forest played in the EFL Championship as recently as 2022 and arrived in Manchester, having lost three of their last four games. They left with their first victory at Old Trafford in 30 years.
Co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe says United have become “mediocre”. Some of the defending during the 3-2 defeat to Nuno Espirito Santo’s team was far worse than that.
“We already knew [it would be tough],” said Amorim.
“It will be a long journey but we want to win because this is a massive club. You feel it, when you lose one game it’s really hard for everybody. I can understand that. I can feel it in the stadium after the first goal.
“We understand the context but we have to keep going in the same way, doing the same things. The same words I have here with [the 4-0 win over] Everton, I have today. Focus on the performance. We need to improve in a lot of aspects of the game and continue to do the same things tomorrow in training.”
Amorim has spent much of his first three weeks on the job talking about his tactics. But formations and systems mean very little when you’ve got players making the most basic errors.
The first mistake against Forest came from Lisandro Martínez inside 90 seconds. The Argentinian failed to jump with Nikola Milenkovic, who powered Elliot Anderson’s corner past goalkeeper André Onana. It was the third goal conceded from a set piece in the last four days after Arsenal got two on Wednesday.
After United equalised through Rasmus Højlund, the next two mistakes were from Bruno Fernandes and Onana less than two minutes into the second half.
Fernandes’ attempted flick to Leny Yoro — making his full competitive debut — was easily cut out by a blue Forest shirt before the ball was worked to Morgan Gibbs-White. His shot from the edge of the area was speculative at best, but still somehow found a way past Onana. It was a howler from the Cameroon goalkeeper reminiscent of some of his worst mistakes last season.
It wasn’t the end of the calamitous and if anything Forest’s third goal was the worst of the lot.
First, Kobbie Mainoo and Diogo Dalot were outfought on the edge of their own area. Then Yoro was outjumped by Chris Wood at the back post. Wood’s looping header back across goal seemed relatively harmless, but as Onana, Martínez and Matthijs de Ligt all looked at each other the ball crept into the corner as Wood, celebrating his 33rd birthday, wheeled away to celebrate in front of the travelling Forest fans.
With those fans who have now been treated to victories at Anfield and Old Trafford this season, the three culprits looked at each other in disbelief. They only had themselves to blame.
Fernandes pulled a goal back, but it wasn’t enough to prevent Amorim from losing back-to-back top-flight games for only the second time in his managerial career and for the first time since August 2022. He said at the start of the week that a “storm is coming” and in the wind and rain that battered Manchester for much of the day, Forest proved him right.
“I had this and worse in Sporting in the beginning,” said Amorim.
“The feeling for me is the same but for the world, it’s completely different. You know Sporting in Portugal but Manchester [United] has a lot of attention but for me, it’s the same feeling.
“I had this period at Sporting and if you are a little experienced in football this happens with a lot of clubs and we have to manage to continue to do the same things and improve the team because this will turn around. We need time and to continue to work in the same way every day.”
The storm might not be over just yet. United have a UEFA Europa League tie against FC Viktoria Plzen on Thursday followed by Amorim’s first Manchester derby against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium three days later. They’ve got games against Tottenham Hotspur, Newcastle United, Liverpool and Arsenal to come before the end of January.
Defeat to Forest left United 13th in the table with just 19 points — their lowest tally after 15 games since the 1986-87 season. Amorim is attempting to lift the club up from one of their lowest ebbs in modern times. He already knew the size of the task before Forest brutally laid it out for all to see.
