Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney questioned why Ruben Amorim isn’t instructing his wing-backs to push higher up the pitch and press, following the team’s recent loss to Brentford.
United shipped four goals at the Gtech Community Stadium to suffer what was their 16th top-flight defeat of the season.
Brentford raced to a commanding 4-1 lead before United scored two late goals to reduce the deficit. The Red Devils remain winless in six league matches.
The result left Amorim’s men languishing in 15th place in the standings.
Against the Bees, Amorim named he third youngest Premier League starting XI of any club, with the likes of Chido Obi-Martin, Harry Amass and Tyler Fredricson all handed opportunities.
The youngsters endured a challenging outing, though Amorim expressed pride in their efforts and emphasised that the experience would serve as a valuable learning opportunity.
But, speaking on Match of the Day 2, Rooney was more critical of Amorim and the way the 40-year-old coach set up his team.
The former England international took a swipe at Kobbie Mainoo for “switching off” for two of Brentford’s goals and also slammed Amorim for deploying Amad at wing-back.
Expanding on Rooney’s points, ex-Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy pointed out, “It is about intensity, but with wingbacks, different to a back four, it allows you to go and press because you’ve got the extra centre half behind you.”
“But surely that’s what they do in training, no? If you’re a coach of a system – the basics of this system with wingbacks is they press the wide men quick and it doesn’t look like they’re doing it. It’s bizarre for me to see.”
Rooney answered, “It’s strange, because that’s why you play a back five with wingbacks. They have to put pressure on the ball or otherwise you get outnumbered in the midfield and the ball comes back into midfield. It was strange, but they had a lot of young players.”
“There was a lack of movement and a lack of knowhow on the pitch. They’ve got a 17-year-old lad up front – the youngest ever to start up front for United – and they’re just launching balls up to him. I really felt for Obi today because you can tell he’s inexperienced but it looked like he had no help, they were just throwing balls up to him.”
Murphy added that Amorim is not mixing things up and considering he plays just one style, there should already be evident signs of improvement.”
Rooney continued, “You’d think so, but I think the second team are playing a back four, which I found strange, because those players who are coming into the first team now with the under-23s or under-21s are playing a different system.”
“For me, that’s a bit confusing. Getting to the Europa League final is papering over a lot of cracks for Manchester United and that needs solving quickly.”
Should Man Utd be performing better under Ruben Amorim?#BBCFootball #MOTD2 pic.twitter.com/MZUSQvCu1t
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) May 4, 2025
United are back in action on Thursday when they welcome Athletic Club to Old Trafford for the return leg of their Europa League semi-final tie. United boast a healthy 3-0 aggregate lead heading into the match.
Featured image Richard Heathcote via Getty Images
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Derick Kinoti
Derick Kinoti is a football writer at The Peoples Person who has covered Manchester United and the game extensively for many years. He is a keen analyst with expertise in SEO and journalism standards. Derick is convinced Wayne Rooney is the true GOAT and won’t hear otherwise!
