MANCHESTER, England: Improving Manchester United’s defensive weaknesses, especially when it comes to set-pieces, has become a priority for new head coach Ruben Amorim, whose meticulous planning has been hampered by his team’s failure to deal with corner kick dangers.
Nottingham Forest needed just 90 seconds to score from a corner at Old Trafford late on Wednesday night as United suffered a 3-2 defeat and showed Amorim’s side had learned little from their 2-0 midweek defeat at Arsenal when both goals came from the spot.
“When this happened it was my fault, because I was responsible. We tried to do it in the best way, we worked a lot in this area because we saw it at Arsenal and it was really difficult,” Amorim told a news conference.
“At the beginning of the game (against Forest), you suffered with the first movement, it was really difficult to inject energy into the team, but then we managed to equalise and finally in the second half the same thing happened.”
United’s lack of height and strength at the back was exposed at free kicks and corners and Amorim reshuffled his team in the second half, bringing on centre-back Harry Maguire at 3-2 when he feared he would concede again.
“We put Harry Maguire on because of the set-pieces, to have more control over who wins the first ball. The only way to attack Nottingham is on the counter-attack, to try and win the first and second balls. When Harry is in the middle of the pitch he wins all the first balls,” said Amorim.
However, by then the damage had already been done.
United’s defence were careless in allowing Forest defender Nikola Milenkovic space, who rose above Lisandro Martinez to head home.
Martinez and goalkeeper Andre Onana were then at fault for Forest’s third goal in the 54th minute, a header from Chris Wood that should have been dealt with.
“Everyone is aware of the importance of set-pieces today, they are huge, a way to make a difference for you and your opponent. We did well today,” said New Zealand forward Wood.
Amorim insists he will stick to his principles, despite his shaky start at Old Trafford.
“This is happening to a lot of clubs and we need to keep trying to do the same thing in order to improve the team, because all this will change,” he said.