No utopia for Man Utd as Anorim gets close-up view of challenge ahead

IPSWICH, England : When Manchester United scored 81 seconds into Ruben Amorim’s first game as head coach Sky Sports commentator Peter Drury described the moment as utopian.

Amorim himself barely celebrated Marcus Rashford’s close-range effort though and simply sipped from his water bottle.

The Portuguese knew full well there was still a long way to go, not just in the game, but also on the road to turning around the fortunes of England’s most successful club.

Struggling Ipswich duly equalised and were perhaps the better side in a 1-1 Premier League draw at Portman Road.

For all the early hysteria among the travelling United fans in Suffolk, Amorim was given a close-up view of exactly how much work he has in front of him.

Former United captain Roy Keane said that for all talk of a ‘temporary bounce’ effect, there was precious little evidence on the pitch that the squad Amorim has inherited is good enough.

“It was all very positive before the game, but when it started it was the same old stuff,” Keane told Sky Sports. “Predictable and a real lack of quality.”

Amorim, whose impressive work at Sporting in Portugal convinced United’s hierarchy to appoint him in the wake of Erik ten Hag’s exit, was warmly applauded by the United fans after the final whistle. But they know patience will be required.

The 39-year-old has had just a few days working with the whole squad because of the international break and admitted that getting his philosophy, including his preferred 3-4-3 system across to the players, will not be a smooth process.

“I learned today that it’s a tough league,” Amorim, who took Sporting to the Portuguese title last season, told Sky Sports.

“I think my players were thinking too much during the game. You could feel it. When you start the game like this you score one goal but then you have to control the tempo of the game.

“We have two ways. Just try to win games and don’t risk anything at this moment and I guarantee this time next year we will have the same problem. From the first moment, the players will have problems, be confused sometimes but we have to address new ideas and try to be better in the next year.

“We will learn things about the players but will need a lot of time to work out these things.”

The statistics, according to Opta, showed that Manchester United’s players ran a combined 102km against Ipswich, their second-lowest total this season – a stark contrast to his hard-running, high-energy Sporting team that thrashed Manchester City in the Champions League earlier this month.

“They are confused a little bit but we’ve had only two days of training. We have to understand the data to see what happened in the game. We have to be so much better physically.”

Amorim expressed himself eloquently as he chatted to the Sky Sports analysts, although he declared that he will be happy when the talking can stop and he can focus solely on helping United start to climb the table from their current 12th place.

“This week I spoke more than four years with Sporting,” he said. “And if you speak too much and don’t win it’s really hard for everybody. I want to work with my players and nothing more but I understand that this is a different game here.”