Man Utd legend Rio Ferdinand has hit out at two players after their narrow win over Ipswich, while giving a “brutally honest” assessment of Ruben Amorim.
The Red Devils moved up to 14th in the Premier League by beating the Tractor Boys on Wednesday evening but they didn’t make it easy for themselves.
A mix-up between Andre Onana and Patrick Dorgu allowed Jaden Philogene to walk the ball into an empty net just four minutes into the game at Old Trafford.
Man Utd then struck back through a Sam Morsy own-goal and a Matthijs de Ligt strike, as they approached half-time in the lead – but Patrick Dorgu’s sending off on 43 minutes gave the visitors a man advantage.
Amorim’s side threw away the lead just before the interval when a ball into the box from Philogene went all the way into the net.
And it came to former captain Harry Maguire to save the day once again with a thumping header just after half-time, which eventually proved enough for Man Utd to seal all three points in a 3-2 win.
Offering his assessment of the Amorim era so far, Ferdinand told TNT Sports: “I think if we’re being brutally honest, there hasn’t been the progress that we all anticipated.
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“Where he came from, how successful he had been and the silverware he brought to Sporting, the anticipation of him coming was like, “Wow! What an opportunity we’ve got now with this young manager”, and it hasn’t transferred here.”
The Man Utd legend added: “I think he needs to just get to the end of the season, really regroup and then start building again, building the team and coaching the team because right now they’ve been stuttering along and that’s probably being polite.”
Amorim has attempted to bring his playing style, formation and philosophy from Sporting CP to this Man Utd team and it hasn’t worked so far.
Ferdinand continued: “I watched Sporting a few times, in Europe especially. They were an athletic, dynamic team. That was one of the staples of that team, the hallmarks of that good team that was winning things,’ he explained.
“This team aren’t a mobile, dynamic team.
“If you look through the heartbeat of this team they have other qualities but being physical, having the ability to overrun teams physically – they don’t have that capacity.”
Ferdinand criticised the early mix-up between Onana and Dorgu, he said: “A terrible start. I don’t think Dorgu, at any moment, looks up to sees where Onana is.
“Onana doesn’t need to come in. The full-back is in complete control and he can just hold his ground and let him play it back to him.
“But Dorgu doesn’t look, the awareness isn’t there and it’s pounced on. Ipswich took a deserved lead for pouncing on that lack of communication.”
