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A historic victory for the catalytic Portuguese manager at Old Trafford. Just what Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the headhunting powers that be Reuben Amorim intended, but for one minor detail. The winner was not their glamorous newcomer, but an unfashionable figure Nuno Espirito Santowho managed Nottingham Forest to heights few dared to think they could touch. As for Cupid, his honeymoon period seems fleeting. Problems with Manchester Unitedit seems, he could only hide for three matches.
Since then, Amorim has suffered back-to-back defeats. If the defeat against Arsenal had a logicbeating Forest at Old Trafford was the kind of punishing setback that has happened all too often in the last 14 months under Erik ten Hag. Amorim’s United showed familiar flaws and new ones, contributing to their own downfall with individual errors, slow starts and set failures. As in the denouement at Ten Hague, United were too open, too susceptible to the counter-attack and left the middle of the pitch too empty. Some of it was Ten Hag style mayhem.
However, while the Dutchman’s team had plenty of misses, defending in dead ball situations was not a distinct weakness. However, Nikola Milenkovic’s early goal was United’s third goal from a corner in barely 40 minutes of football, after Arsenal’s brace; when Jota Silva hit the crossbar with his head, and Murillo shot wide after a free kick, i.e. a corner, it underlined that United have a problem. “It’s more my fault because I’m responsible,” said Amorim, who also tried to shield his goalkeeper from blame. Andre Onana has gone from problem to solution, from the weak link last autumn to arguably United’s player of the season so far. Then came an unwelcome return to his awful start to his United career, an almost inexplicable mistake for Forest’s second goal. Factor in Lisandro Martinez’s similarly needless misjudgment for the third and United could have chalked up defeat to themselves.
However, Forest have every right to argue that they deserved to win. “We were brave,” Nuno said. His side arrived with ambition and acumen and were rewarded for each with a first win at Old Trafford in three decades. Stuart Pearce and Stan Collymore were the match winners in 1994, Milenkovic, Morgan Gibbs-White and Chris Wood in 2024. A team that has already triumphed at Anfield this season now has another leading away success. The table suggests that neither is a coincidence. Forest are fifth, United 13th: at the start of the campaign, the assumption might have been that it would be the other way around. “It’s a long journey,” Amorim said. “We already know it’s a big deal.”
His return so far has been poor, with four points from four games, as many as Ten Haag have taken from their last four. Forest scored in the second minute of each half. While Marcus Rashford’s first goal of Amorim’s reign at Ipswich came after 81 seconds, Milenkovic scored here after just 91. It was too easy, Martinez barely challenging the big Serb as he headed home Elliott Anderson’s corner. Milenković earned the status of one of the players of the summer even before he opened his Forest account in such a seismic victory.
United added a lot to the entertainment with their attacks and equalisers. Perhaps it was also a flash of Amorim’s vision, with a casual movement from the back to the front. Rasmus Hojlund’s third goal since his appointment was scored by Manuel Ugarte, with the kind of defence-splitting pass he was not expected to produce. He found Alejandro Garnach and while the Argentinian’s shot was saved by Mats Sels, Hojlund put the ball in on the rebound. But with a docile United and a dominant Forest, the game was decided immediately after the break. “At halftime we were ready to go for the win, and then we started really bad,” Amorim said. There were two goals in seven minutes and two big mistakes. Gibbs-White’s first kick from 20 yards was quick and swerving, but still central. It kind of beat Onana. “When I shot, I thought he was going to pick it up,” admitted the shooter. It seemed so simple.
And Wood had just spurned a chance for a third, curling a shot wide as he put Forest further ahead. This time the culprit was Martinez, who appeared to think the striker’s deflected header went wide of the post. Instead, he slotted home to give Wood Forest a Premier League record-breaking goal on his 33rd birthday. For United, much of the afternoon revolved around their skipper until, suddenly and strangely, he was withdrawn. There was cruelty for Fernandes that his misplaced back-end led to Forest’s second goal. But hitting the crossbar in the first half, Sells did well to apply a crucial touch to his free-kick. He scored in the second, burying a shot from the lively Amado Diallo.
If there was to be a United comeback, it seemed, it would have to come from the captain. He was replaced though. “Bruno is really dangerous around the box, he scores, but Bruno is tired,” Amorim said, but it left United looking disjointed a quarter of an hour before stoppage time. They ended it with a sting of pride, another defeat and another illustration that it takes more than a change of manager to fix a club that Ratcliffe described as mediocre rather than elite. It was damning, but probably not wrong.