Manchester United crashed to a humiliating 3-0 home defeat to Bournemouth on Sunday as Ruben Amorim lost for the fourth time in his nine games in charge of the troubled Old Trafford club.
The United manager, who once again left Marcus Rashford out of his squad, is set for a miserable Christmas following the worst result of his brief reign.
Languishing in 13th place, United have suffered four defeats in nine matches in all competitions since Amorim arrived from Sporting Lisbon in November to replace the sacked Erik ten Hag.
United’s second successive loss after their League Cup exit at Tottenham on Thursday underlined Amorim’s belief that their road back to the top would be long and arduous.
Amorim admitted United were in a ‘tough moment” after the 3-0 defeat.
“It’s a tough moment but we have to face it and prepare for the next game,” Amorim told a news conference.
“It is my responsibility to coach them. Of course we want to improve. At this moment, everything is harder. For a club like Manchester United to lose 3-0 at home, it’s really tough for everybody. And of course the fans are really disappointed and tired.”
United’s set-piece woes also continued against Bournemouth, who took the lead from Dean Huijsen’s head following Ryan Christie’s free-kick into the box.
Set pieces have led to United conceding seven goals in their last six games and Amorim has admitted his players need to fix the issue.
“We have to improve set pieces,” he said.
“We are working on that and we are going to improve on that also, but we didn’t lose because of set pieces. We lose because we create more chances and we didn’t score. Then, in this moment when everything is against us, they can score. One set piece makes us more nervous, all the stadium. I felt it since the first minute there’s a lot of anxiety.”
After the defeat at Spurs, Amorim was critical of his players’ game management after they conceded two goals in eight minutes at the start of the second half.
It was a similar story against Bournemouth, who scored twice in three minutes in the second half to take the game away from United and leave them in the bottom half of the table on Christmas Day for the first time since 1989.
