Gary Neville has urged Ruben Amorim to establish consistency in his team selections following Manchester United’s 3-2 loss to Nottingham Forest on Saturday, suggesting he is already repeating the same critical mistake made by Erik ten Hag. The Red Devils United suffered back-to-back losses for the first time since Amorim replaced the Dutchman as manager with Forest securing their first win at Old Trafford in 30 years.
United fell behind early when Nikola Milenkovic put Forest ahead in the second minute with a header from a corner. Rasmus Hojlund equalized for United with a close-range finish, but Morgan Gibbs-White restored Forest's lead with a low shot that Andre Onana should have saved. A mix-up between Onana and Lisandro Martinez allowed Chris Wood to score Forest’s third goal with a header. Bruno Fernandes pulled one back for United in the 61st minute, but it wasn't enough to complete a comeback in the end.
It now means the former Lisbon manager has guided his new side to just one win in four Premier League games. But while many will believe it's just teething problems, Neville - who won the Premier League eight times during his time at the club - fears that wholesale changes are the primary source of ongoing frustrations.
Gary Neville Identifies Key Mistake Ruben Amorim Is Making
The lack of consistency harks back to Ten Hag's downfall
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After the 2-0 defeat to Arsenal on Wednesday evening, Amorim made four changes to his starting line-up and made five substitutions during the match, with captain Bruno Fernandes among those replaced as United searched for an equaliser.
Neville believes Amorim must establish a core group of players for his new system and has pointed to Enzo Maresca as a strong example, having used two different starting line-ups for Chelsea's Premier League and Conference League matches. As per the Metro, he said:
"When you keep changing players, when you keep changing your back three, you take five players off, you’re basically saying to all of them effectively, because they’ve obviously been left out of the start of the game, is that you don’t trust them.
"Ten Hag kept doing that a few weeks ago, he kept changing the back players, changing the midfield, all of a sudden you’ve got a completely different system, a completely different set of players on the pitch at the end of the game, and you never get stability or consistency."
"There’s just an element of just leave the players on," Neville continued. "They weren’t playing that bad in the first half, obviously they were undermined by the set-pieces in terms of the corners but the football generally wasn’t that bad. Then you allow two mistakes that were made after half time within the first 10 minutes to undermine you, then you basically make changes and all of a sudden everything falls to pieces.
"It looked really scruffy, really scruffy, it looked a mess at the end, with no real shape. I actually think at least in the first half they weren’t brilliant but at least they had a shape to them. I think I said this with Ten Hag for about 12 months – pick an eleven that you think are the best."
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One new manager that has been doing well, though, is Maresca at Chelsea. The Blues currently sit second in the Premier League table ahead of a short trip to north London to face Tottenham, and Neville believes Amorim could take a few pointers from his Italian counterpart. He said:
"Maresca is doing it now at Chelsea. He’s playing an eleven on a Sunday or a Saturday, and then he’s playing a different eleven in midweek. He’s sending some messages to the players that there’s stability here, this is what we’re going to do, this is how we’re going to play, this is an idea I believe in."
He concluded: "When you change players all the time you’re almost saying to everybody you’re just juggling plates all the time, there’s no consistency or familiarity that can build with players, you need to build patterns together, you need to build an idea of what you’re doing together and they can never do that if you’re changing players in all areas of the pitch."