New Man Utd boss Ruben Amorim has singled out Joshua Zirkzee and Jonny Evans for criticism during their 1-1 draw against Ipswich Town on Sunday.
The Red Devils took a very early lead inside two minutes through Marcus Rashford – who scored only his second goal of the season in the Premier League – before Omari Hutchinson equalised just before half-time through a deflected long-range effort.
The point took Amorim’s side up one place in the Premier League table to 12th with Andre Onana producing a couple of brilliant saves to deny Ipswich more goals.
Zirkzee, Luke Shaw, Manuel Ugarte, Rasmus Hojlund and Mason Mount all climbed off the bench in the second half as Man Utd pushed for a winning goal.
Netherlands international Zirkzee – who played as a number ten behind Hojlund when he came on in the 68th minute – has been told by Amorim he’s got to be better at getting into the box during Man Utd attacks.
Amorim told Sky Sports: “I think that [decision-making] is a concern, you don’t need to coach them at this level.
“You have to keep the ball and know the momentum to put the ball in front. Sometimes you feel that you can’t keep the ball and you [have to] put the ball in front.
“Then you have like we are in the end of the game, we were around the box with two strikers. Josh [Zirkzee] has to understand that he has to go to the box to have the crosses.
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“So we are doing some things that were not at the right moment, so that is something we have to address.
“Sometimes people talk about the 3-4-3, that is not the concern, the system is the system but the understanding of the game is what we have to improve a lot in this area.”
New Man Utd boss Amorim also insisted that Evans should have been getting tighter to Hutchinson with the Ipswich winger allowed too much space.
Amorim added: “If you see the first half, we were a little bit afraid. The No.5 [Sam Morsy] was always alone, we have to jump on him.
“Hutchinson was always in the dead space, Jonny Evans should be pressing his guy, but when we don’t have the training and it’s hard to see say all the reactions to the players.
“We had two days, they are confused a little bit. If you stay here, you don’t run, you defend but you don’t run. You feel that in the data, but we have to understand the data to understand what happened in the game, then we have to be so much better physically to cope with the high pressure, the volume of the high-speed running, we need time to work on these things.”
