Ruben Amorim made another strange tactical decision and it took Alejandro Garnacho and an offside goal to save him from some very awkward questions.
We weren’t at all surprised to see Patrick Dorgu coming straight into the Manchester United team. They’ve been desperate for a left wing-back. And he is definitely a left wing-back, or more commonly a left-back at Lecce before his £25m move to United last month; he’s left-footed and everything.
So colour us surprised to see him line up on the right while right-footed right-back Diogo Dalot continued on the left, in what we all assumed was a stop-gap role ahead of a change of sides that the new signing would allow.
“I think he needs to start playing,” Ruben Amorim said ahead of kick-off when asked about Dorgu’s first start for the club. “He did very well this week. We need wingers, even the left foot sometimes in the opposite side, we can change sides.”
“Sometimes” sure, but from the start? After the Kobbie Mainoo experiment failed spectacularly last weekend, a more circumspect soul, less willing to leave himself open to rebuke would probably have opted to field players in their natural positions, but not Amorim, who flies so far in the face of the old footballing customs that nigh-on every Manchester United player on the pitch was playing in an inverted position.
The inverted wing-backs were playing outside the inverted wingers, with left-footed Amad Diallo on the right and right-footed Kobbie Mainoo on the left, while right-footed Noussair Mazraoui operated at left centre-back and right-footed Bruno Fernandes played on the left of the double pivot to create a quadruple threat of right-footed footballers on that side.
It’s not unusual for Amorim, who played left-footed Geovany Quenda – heavily linked with United in January – at right wing-back for Sporting, but This Is Manchester United; by his own admission, quite possibly the worst ever Manchester United.
And while Amorim’s been heralded for his refusal to even tweak his rigid philosophy to aid his team, who continue to play as though they’re collectively bereaved in some way, as Ange Postecoglou is currently keenly aware, the Plan B-enquiring wolves will soon be scraping at the door if the results don’t arrive, with failure to placate the doubters through adjustments to the ethos inevitably leading to talk of the sack.
Bobby De Cordova-Reid’s opener meant Manchester United, MANCHESTER UNITED, have conceded the first goal in seven of their last eight games at Old Trafford.
Manuel Ugarte was robbed of possession trying a nutmeg next to his own penalty area, Bilal El Khannouss eased to the byline and pulled the ball back for Wilfred Ndidi, whose run hadn’t been tracked by Mainoo, with De Cordova-Reid nodding the ball over Andre Onana after the United goalkeeper had blocked Ndidi’s hot. Terrible defending, but hey, This Is Manchester United.
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They offered nothing going forward in the first half, with the inversion obsession meaning they had very little width to speak of, with Dorgu predictably struggling to beat the first man on his weaker side when he did get through on a couple of occasions on the right, while literally nothing was created from the left until Alejandro Garnacho came on for Dorgu at half-time.
He really should have scored when United’s first real chance arrived in the 65th minute. Having dashed in behind the defence he took too long and saw his shot deflected over Mads Hermansen before being cleared superbly off the line by Caleb Okoli.
But Garnacho was a much-needed source of attacking joy – the only source – and set up the equaliser, driving at James Justin before pulling the ball back for Rasmus Hojlund, whose flick was blocked into the path of Joshua Zirkzee, who had the simple task of passing the ball into an empty net.
United were much improved after the break, but still not great, and can count themselves very fortunate to be through to the fifth round, with the lack of VAR costing Leicester as Harry Maguire nodded Bruno Fernandes’ deep cross in at the back post from a very clear offside position. He was never not offside.
This is undoubtedly a poor group of Manchester United players, one of the worst we’ve seen in the Premier League era, but they’re a whole lot better than Leicester and shouldn’t be struggling to a lucky victory at home against one of the worst teams in the division.
That’s on Amorim, who needs to find a balance between moulding this group of players – most of whom he’s going to be stuck with for a long time yet – to play in his system and according to his philosophy, and making allowances within that ethos to get results, bending his rigid rules of play if necessary. It’s not a sign of weakness, it’s coaching.
