Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim has fingered his team’s poor defending as the reason for their latest Derby Day embarrassment.
United took the trip across the city to the Etihad to face local rivals Manchester City. They were outclassed and eventually lost 3-0, with Erling Haaland bagging a brace in the second half after Phil Foden opened the scoring in the first half.
The game ended up even on paper: City managed ten shots with five being on target, while United managed 12 with 2 being on target. United also held on to the ball more, cornering 54% of the possession to themselves. They also had more corner kicks than their hosts and were offside 4 times, showing that they could break City’s defensive lines.
In the end, however, the scoreline did not reflect the effort that the stats sheet showed they put in, and Amorim blames “avoidable goals” for the result.
Speaking to journalists after the match, the former Sporting CP Lisbon manager said, “If you look at the goals, we can avoid those goals. That was the biggest difference. We can do better, especially the second goal. We suffered goals we can avoid. The biggest difference was when we had transitions, we didn’t score. In the second half they did better in transition and we suffered in that moment.
“We can do better, that is clear but again transitions, the third goal, lack of quality in the connection, people don’t know who is going to the ball and then the guy is free to score. The first one he [Doku] is in the middle of four guys and we can be aggressive in that moment. Of course in this moment it bounces and goes to Foden.
“In the second half, we started really well and then to suffer that kind of goal with the throw-in because we want to recover the ball so fast when we have to cover the space and then run to press, we let two players one against one, Leny [Yoro] is going from outside and not inside and then small pass, small run and Haaland scores.
“We then had the opportunity to open the game with Bryan [Mbeumo], great save from the opponent [Donnarumma] – all these small details make the difference.”
He then went on to defend his players’ efforts and redirect all blame to himself. “I’m not happier. I didn’t see one player of my team not giving the maximum,” he said. “The rest is with me.
“The disappointment sometimes is I look at my team and I feel we could run more, but I didn’t have that feeling today. If I have that feeling, I will be okay. I’m emotional when I feel that we can do better in effort. It’s my fault, not their fault and I am fine with that. When I don’t do, it’s my fault, it’s not their fault, so I will be fine with that, so sometimes I’m emotional, sometimes I just move on and go to the next game.”
