Onana played a needlessly risky pass
Onana played a needlessly risky pass
Ruben Amorim admitted Manchester United "have to work on" playing out from the back after Andre Onana gifted Viktoria Plzen the opening goal in their Europa League victory.
Onana, who was passive during Arsenal's corners that they scored from twice last week before his howler in the loss to Nottingham Forest three days later, casually underhit a pass intended for Matthijs de Ligt that was intercepted by Pavel Sulc, who teed up Matej Vydra to score in the 48th minute.
United signed Onana for £47.2million as former manager Erik ten Hag felt they needed a ball-playing goalkeeper to replace the limited David de Gea. Onana had been enjoying a fine season until Arsenal exploited his set-piece shortcomings last week and he has since committed glaring errors against Forest and Plzen.
The 28-year-old was so relieved by Rasmus Hojlund's 88th-minute winner that he ran the length of the pitch to celebrate with teammates. Although Onana was primarily culpable, Amorim also noticed a "disconnect" from United's outfield players.
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"You have to take it like it is," Amorim said. "He had already, in the past, a past situation like that. We have to work on this.
"If you see the play we are trying to build up a lot with the goalkeeper making the bounce with Mattha. This time we have a disconnect a little bit during the play. And when we try this we suffered a goal. A difficult goal for us in the second half.
"But we managed today, not like against Nottingham. We managed to help Onana. Like he did in the past for us."
Amorim highlighted Plzen's work rate before the game, having done likewise ahead of United's tie against Bodo/Glimt two weeks ago in an attempt to improve his own team's running stats.
United travel to Manchester City on Sunday with the Premier League champions in dire form amid accusations coach Pep Guardiola has settled for an ageing squad that has not been refreshed.
Amorim criticised a "lack of pace" during the first hour of United's win in the Czech Republic, seemingly referring to the lackadaisical Marcus Rashford and Joshua Zirkzee. The pair were substituted within 15 minutes of the restart and Amorim's demand that the players put a shift in has seen him resort to using markers on the training pitch.
"It’s about putting some small targets," he explained. "Some marks on the pitch telling players where players would be when the ball is near our box.
"I think they are improving and if you see the transitions you can see that we are improving on the speed. Sometimes we cannot do it but we are training and I can feel it in the team."