Gary Neville has slammed Rúben Amorim for a decision that left Manchester United in a mess following their Premier League loss against Nottingham Forest.
Manchester United endured a 3-2 defeat at Old Trafford as Nottingham Forest claimed all three points in Saturday’s Premier League encounter.
The visitors wasted no time, with Nikola Milenkovic heading them in front just two minutes in. United responded through Rasmus Højlund, who tapped in a rebound from Alejandro Garnacho‘s effort to equalise in the 18th minute.
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After the break, Forest once again struck early, regaining their lead within two minutes of the restart. Chris Wood added a third for the visitors, putting United on the back foot. Bruno Fernandes halved the deficit with 30 minutes to play, igniting hopes of a comeback.
Despite sustained pressure, United couldn’t find the decisive goal, as Rúben Amorim suffered his first defeat as manager at Old Trafford.
Neville slams Amorim decision
For each of his five fixtures as head coach so far, Rúben Amorim has chosen to rotate his XIs heavily, citing the need to give players enough rest so they can train on the field to learn his new system.
However, former United captain Gary Neville has taken poorly to the rotation policy, explaining that the decision from Amorim leaves the players feeling as if they are not trusted – something that aided the sacking of Erik ten Hag at the club in October.
Speaking on NBC Sports, Neville opined: “When you keep changing players, when you keep changing your back three, when you take five players off, you’re basically saying to all of them effectively – because they’ve been left out of the starting XI – you don’t trust them.
“And Ten Hag kept doing that a few weeks ago where 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 can never get stability or consistency.”
Neville added: “Just leave the players on. They actually 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 were made after half-time after the first 10 minutes to undermine you and then basically you make changes and all of a sudden everything falls to pieces and it looked really scruffy.
“They looked a mess at the end United with no real shape. I actually think at least in the first-half, they weren’t great but at least they had a shape about them.”
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