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On Saturday, December 7, Manchester United suffered their second straight Premier League defeat in the week, losing to Nottingham Forest 2-3 at the Old Trafford. Following a tough loss, Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim spoke about how his team started “really bad” in the beginning of both halves, following which they weren’t able to make a comeback against a very impressive Nottingham Forest side, who jumped to fifth place in the Premier League standings.
Notably, in just the second minute of the contest at the Old Trafford, Nottingham Forest scored the opening goal when Nikola Melankovic leaped over Lisandro Martinez, to smash a towering header into the back of the net. Manchester United responded well after going a goal down, and in the 18th minute, Rasmus Hojlund brought them on level terms with an easy tap-in after Manuel Ugarte and Alejandro Garnacho set it up for him.
Nottingham Forest won for the first-time at Old Trafford since 1990s
At the start of the second half, Manchester United’s defence switched off completely, which led to them conceding two avoidable goals within a space of seven minutes. In the 47th minute, Morgan Gibbs-White had a hopeful swipe at goal after a mistake in the midfield from Bruno Fernandes, but Andre Onana made a complete mess of the save, letting the ball swerve past his left side into the goal, allowing Nottingham Forest to take a 2-1 lead.
Just seven minutes later, Chris Wood directed a hopeful header from one side of the post to the other one, but instead of making a save, the likes of Andre Onana, Matthijs de Ligt, and Lisandro Martinez looked at each other, and the ball sneaked into the back of the net. With a 3-1 lead, Nottingham Forest switched into bolstering their defence, and despite allowing Bruno Fernades to pull a goal back in the 61st minute, they managed to secure a 3-2 win at Old Trafford.
Dan Ashworth reportedly left Manchester United's Sporting Director role
In his post-match chat with Sky Sports, Ruben Amorim wasn’t happy with the performance of his Manchester United players and said, “It was a tough game, we started the two halves really bad. It was hard to pass on some calm to the players and continue the game as we should do. We had not a lot of quality but a lot of heart. Suffering two goals after half time in this context is really hard.”
“It's a tough context but we have to understand this is a long journey and that's what our jobs are,” Ruben Amorim remarked about the task at hand for everyone at Manchester United. After last night’s loss, the Red Devils suffered yet another blow as their Sporting Director Dan Ashworth left the club after just five months at the job, as reported by the Athletic, citing differences with INEOS CEO Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who wasn’t happy with his strategy for the club made prior to the start of the season.
