Manchester United‘s weakness from set pieces was exploited again as they fell to a 3-2 Premier League defeat by Nottingham Forest at Old Trafford on Saturday, continuing a rocky start to the reign of new head coach Ruben Amorim.
Forest’s first win at Old Trafford in 30 years moves them up to fifth in the table on 25 points, while the scale facing the recently-appointed United coach was apparent as his side languish in 13th place on 19 points after a disjointed display that featured some glaring defensive errors.
“Tough game in a tough moment, but we have to continue the job,” Amorim told the BBC.
Having conceded from two corners to Arsenal in a 2-0 defeat in midweek, United went behind from another corner within two minutes as Forest defender Nikola Milenkovic easily out-jumped Lisandro Martínez to head his first goal for the club.
United levelled in the 18th minute when Alejandro Garnacho‘s initial shot was saved, but Danish striker Rasmus Højlund pounced to slot home the rebound to ignite the home crowd.
The hosts started the second half equally badly and again they conceded within two minutes as Fernandes lost the ball. It was quickly fed to Morgan Gibbs-White, whose low bouncing drive somehow took André Onana by surprise and flew past him into the net.
“I don’t want to discredit Onana, he’s a great keeper, an incredible keeper, but when I first took the shot I thought, ‘He’s just going to pick it up’ and you know, it went in,” Gibbs-White told Sky Sports.
The United goalkeeper was at fault again seven minutes later when Forest scored from a scrappy attack, Chris Wood sending a looping header over him and into the net to leave Onana and Martínez looking at each other in frustration after another sloppy goal.
Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images
Fernandes redeemed himself just after the hour mark, scoring with a superb shot from the edge of the box but despite being United’s best player for much of the game, he was replaced in the 76th minute by Mason Mount.
United continued to look disjointed until Marcus Rashford‘s stoppage time volley was deflected behind for a corner, and Martínez sent another volley from the resulting set-piece whistling over the bar.
That was as close as they came as Forest stood firm to claim all three points, and Amorim was critical of how his side made things difficult for themselves.
“We started really bad, the first play we suffered a goal and then it’s hard to try to fight. We then controlled the game and had a lot of situations,” the 39-year-old Portuguese coach said.
“At half-time we were ready to go for the win, and then [we] started really bad. Two goals. Then we tried a lot of things with not a lot of quality … We are in the start of something so big that we pay attention to every detail, we already know it’s a big job, so we have to continue,” he added.
