Neville cautions Amorim: This situation can’t continue like this!
Manchester United lost 2-0 against Crystal Palace as Ruben Amorim started Kobbie Mainoo up front; Gary Neville: “There’s going to be a lot more pain towards the end of the season, and it’s going to be damaging—because they’re obviously going to stick with Amorim.”
After three consecutive victories over Rangers, Fulham, and Steaua Bucharest, Sunday’s 2-0 home loss to Crystal Palace put Amorim’s United back to square one. It was the 39-year-old’s fifth league loss in seven games at Old Trafford since taking over, the quickest any Manchester United manager has ever reached that number of home top-flight losses in Premier League history, according to Gary Neville, who also cautioned the Portuguese: “It can’t keep going on like this.”
From now until the end of the season, Neville believes the pain for Amorim, his players, and United fans will only worsen.
“I thought it would get better when Ruben Amorim came in, the enthusiasm of him and the new system, the players would buy into, and we’d see a bounce,” he told the Gary Neville Podcast.
“But we’ve seen the absolute opposite, and it’s gotten a lot worse—and that’s surprising.
“There’s going to be a lot more pain towards the end of the season, and it’s going to be damaging—because they’re obviously going to stick with Amorim. But the more you lose, the more difficult it is for the manager to convince the players of his idea.
In the very beginning, he stated, “I will not change my idea, and you need the players to buy into that. If they keep losing and they keep getting criticised and the spotlight comes on them more and the fans are leaving unhappy, you know it creates a feeling, and you can’t keep losing.
“You just can’t. It will depress the thoughts of the players to a point whereby they’ll start to lose faith in the idea, and it’ll damage you.
“He can’t change his approach now because he’s died in the ditch on it and rightly so. But he’s lost more games at Manchester United than he lost in the last 75 at Sporting Lisbon, which is just absolutely alarming, so he will not be enjoying this.
“It can’t keep going on as it is, and they somehow have to start playing better—because at this moment in time, it’s a very sorry situation when you watch United play.”