Three things we learned as listless United fight back to draw at Nottingham Forest

Manchester United fought back from 2-1 down to secure a draw at Nottingham Forest. Casemiro headed the Red Devils into a first-half lead, but a quickfire double from the hosts turned the match on its head in the first few minutes of the second half. United were up against it for large parts of the game, but Amad volleyed home an equaliser to earn his side a valuable point. Here are three things we learned from the draw. Amorim’s getting comfortable, but should have done more For the first time since his arrival exactly one year ago, Ruben Amorim fielded a team entirely unchanged from his side’s last match. It was the clearest indication yet that, for the Portuguese tactician, his squad is starting to respond to and deliver on the methods he has been pushing for the past 12 months, and that he feels comfortable in identifying his best starting eleven. As usual he tinkered with his backline during the game, hooking Leny Yoro with 15 minutes to go and switching Diogo Dalot for Patrick Dorgu halfway through the second half. But with his side chasing first an equaliser and then a winner, keeping the likes of Joshua Zirkzee and Mason Mount on the bench feels like a missed opportunity, particularly given Benjamin Sesko’s difficult day at the office. Old habits die hard United took some huge steps forward from their dire start to the season with statement wins against historic rivals Liverpool and notorious bogey side Brighton, but showed today that they still have the self-destructive tendency that has come to characterise Amorim’s time at the club. Forest had been knocking at the door before the interval, but United ignored the first-half signs and allowed their hosts to pick up right where they left off. Morgan Gibbs-White’s equaliser was disappointingly predictable, but Nicolo Savona putting Forest ahead 39 seconds after the ensuing restart was the kind of footballing farce that feels like something only United could manage. The Red Devils did rally themselves for an equaliser and had a good crack at finding a winner, which it’s hard to imagine happening from a similar position last season, but it was still a reminder of the squad’s flaws. Amorim might have felt like his players had turned a corner but their ability to let that lead slip so easily indicates their mentality may have snapped back to square one, leaving the head coach with a lot of work to do and redo. United deliver highlights, not consistency/h3> There was a familiar rhythm to today’s match, which opened with a furious five minutes from an impressive United before their opposition got a foothold and made things distinctly more difficult for the Red Devils. United looked fairly comfortable despite Forest’s dominance before Casemiro headed them into the lead but his goal, and the corner from which it came, only served to boost the hosts’ resolve. For the rest of the first half, they looked good for a goal, and after plundering two in the first few minutes of the second they mostly dominated and could have scored more, scything through the left side of United’s defence. Amad’s crashing volley earned the Red Devils a draw, and the Ivorian was one goal-line clearance away from bagging a winner in the dying moments. Earlier in the half Bruno Fernandes hit the post and United had other chances which could make a highlights reel look quite promising, but overall it felt like a lucky escape to emerge from the City Ground with a point. Featured image Molly Darlington via Getty Images The Peoples Person has been one of the world’s leading Man United news sites for over a decade. Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social Joe Ponting Joe has spent more than half his life writing about football and all of it following United. As a child he told a doctor his name was ‘Paul Scholes’, but could never pick a pass like him no matter how much he tried. He cut his teeth working in print media for local newspapers and entered football journalism covering the grassroots game for the Non-League Paper. Here he achieved a career high, interviewing United legend Sir Bobby Charlton to get his views on the lower echelons of the football pyramid. To kill time during international breaks Joe writes album reviews and has strong views on post punk for Plus One Magazine.