Ruben Amorim made quite a few changes for Manchester United’s Premier League game against Newcastle United at St James’ Park on Sunday but they hardly paid off as the hosts ran out comfortable 4-1 winners.
All the pre-match talk was surrounding Andre Onana being dropped from the matchday squad and replacement Altay Bayindir had the chance to cement his place in the starting lineup ahead of the crucial Europa League quarter-final second leg.
But the Turk was equally bad, as his woeful passing allowed the Magpies to score their fourth. Two goalkeepers, and neither can perform for the club and yet the club paid big money to sign them. Playing for the club has been way too easy recently.
The goalkeeper was not the only poor player with the entire defence at sixes and sevens for the entire game, committing far too many errors throughout the game.
Leny Yoro was uncharacteristically poor while Victor Lindelof was poor and it is no surprise that he will be leaving once his contract expires in the summer. Noussair Mazraoui’s slip allowed Harvey Barnes to score his second and Newcastle’s third.
Defensive errors galore
But the most concerning display came from the midfielders — Manuel Ugarte and Christian Eriksen. Both do not have the pace to deal with the home side’s relentless pressing while the Uruguayan’s passing was very poor.
He was showing signs of slowly coming to grips with playing for the Red Devils but his form has nosedived since the international break.
Very conservative in his passing whenever he had the ball, it was his mis-pass which allowed Newcastle to open the scoring.
He was also having to cover way too much space due to the Dane’s presence beside him. The lack of physicality in the team was exposed time and again by the Magpies. Eriksen starting in an away game shows the lack of options at the coach’s disposal.
Eriksen simply cannot run, which is why he is set to leave once his contract expires but the fact that United’s midfield options consist of two 33-year-olds (Casemiro being the other), and one weak passer in Ugarte shows how poor the recruitment has been over the years.
Poor recruitment
The 20-time English league champions had spent £615 million under Erik ten Hag to build a team who can only counter-attack with the physical floor of the team well below the league’s top sides.
The Newcastle players were swarming all over United for the entire 90+ minutes, winning almost every second ball while easily outrunning the visiting side. And that simply cannot happen.
Things got worse for the visitors when Joshua Zirkzee had to be subbed off after what seemed like a hamstring injury. Now, the head coach only has Rasmus Hojlund to call upon for the game against Olympique Lyonnais.
The league season has been a write-off for a long time now but Amorim has a mountain to climb if the next season is to be any better especially if the club falters in their quest to qualify for the Champions League.
The Portuguese tactician needs to revamp almost every area of the pitch and how INEOS deal with that will decide in which direction the club will travel next season.
Feature image George Wood via Getty Images
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Ayantan Chowdhury
Ayantan has worked for 10 years in the Indian sports media industry, writing for the biggest newspapers and websites but his heart was always set on writing about his favourite club. Currently an editor at The Peoples Person. You can follow him on X: @ayantanc_25
