Ruben Amorim shuts down transfer query as ‘awful’ stat emerges from Man Utd draw | Football

Ruben Amorim shut down the suggestion that Manchester United may have to spend extra money on overhauling their defence following his side’s breathless 4-4 draw with Bournemouth.

The Red Devils surrendered the lead 3 times in an eight-goal thriller at Old Trafford and needed to depend on a pair of late saves from Senne Lammens to come back away with a degree.

In a pulsating first half, the hosts began much the higher team, but Antoine Semenyo continued his excellent run of form to cancel out Amad Diallo’s earlier header and make it 1-1 within the fortieth minute.

After Casemiro had restored United’s advantage, the visitors again fought back, with Evanilson and Marcus Tavernier each netting for Bournemouth within the space of six second-half minutes.

Two quickfire goals from Bruno Fernandes and Matheus Cunha swung the match back in United’s favour with 11 minutes remaining of normal time to take the roof off the Theatre of Dreams – with Amorim’s men seemingly heading in the right direction for a second successive win.

But Eli Junior Kroupi had other ideas, ending cooly past Lammens to make it 4 goals apiece, which is the way it ended as referee Simon Hooper blew his whistle to call time on an unforgettable Premier League contest.

The result meant that United’s 2-0 victory over Sunderland in October stays their one and only clean sheet of the season.

Going back further, to the very start of Amorim’s reign, the club have managed only six clean sheets in 43 Premier League matches – a startling statistic which Jamie Carragher branded as ‘awful’ within the Sky Sports studio.

The ex-Liverpool and England defender added: ‘It’s a giant problem for them.

‘They’d problems at each ends of the pitch last season and we highlighted before the sport that they’re improving in attack. We saw that again tonight.

‘A few of the attacking players from Manchester United were unbelievable. They’d a number of young defenders on the market as well tonight, which didn’t help.’

But while United have registered only one clean sheet of their first 16 games of the league season, Amorim refused to just accept that simply making more signings in January was the reply.

‘No, I believe we now have talent on the back, we now have quality players on the back,’ Amorim replied when a reporter asked if United needed to take a position of their defence like that they had done on their attack in the summertime.

‘We just must be higher as a team defending.

‘But that’s a great point, that we eventually took care of the offensive side [in the summer].

‘We’re improving, but I believe it’s not the identical situation.

‘We just must work together and to enhance our players because they’ve the standard to defender higher.’

Though Amorim said there was no quick fix for United’s defensive frailties, he stressed that he can be ‘addressing’ the issues he witnessed ahead of the side’s clash with Aston Villa.

‘I believe we’re pressing higher, we’re controlling the sport higher,’ the Portuguese explained.

‘Removed from our goal, we’re lacking in quality after we defend our goal. It’s something we want to handle, after all.

‘It’s different whenever you suffer so many goals and the opponent doesn’t have the identical amount of [chances], it’s really frustrating, but we want to work rather a lot in the way in which we defend the box.’

For Amorim, there was a sense of deja vu that took him back to United’s trip to Nottingham Forest last month, when his side threw away an early lead to attract 2-2 on the City Ground.

‘It was a fun game for everybody at home,’ Amorim said of the 4-4 draw.

‘If you happen to take a look at the sport, you possibly can think that we lost the 2 points within the second half. I believe we lost the 2 points in the primary half.

‘We should always have more goals, it ought to be a unique result at half-time.

‘Much like the Nottingham Forest game, we suffered two goals really fast but we managed to get back to take the advantage again after which we would have liked to shut the sport.

‘Again, it was a fun game to observe but, after all, there may be the sensation of scoring 4 goals and never winning the sport.’

Amorim will now be unable to call upon Bryan Mbeumo, Amad Diallo, and Noussair Mazraoui, with the trio set to jet off to Morocco for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

Casemiro may also be unavailable to face Villa on Sunday after picking up a booking against the Cherries.

‘It’s a chance for everybody, we’ll be ready for the challenge,’ Amorim said of the challenge that awaits his squad over the winter period.

‘We already knew that would occur to any team. Numerous teams are going to lose players, a number of teams have injuries and we want to only go into the subsequent game with the responsibility to win the sport, to fight.

‘We are going to try to seek out alternative ways of making possibilities and scoring goals.’

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