Ruben Amorim couldn’t help wincing. It had just been put to the Manchester United manager that this was another game they failed to make secure, and his facial expression unintentionally made his thoughts clear. He then very intentionally made his thoughts clear.
This wildly swinging 2-2 draw at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium had seemed like a match where it was hard to know how to feel, a response that was oddly fitting since it was between two teams where it’s hard to know exactly where they are.
Not so for Amorim. He very much knew how he felt.
“We have a lot of problems. I know. People see results and think we are improving.”
These were surprisingly strident comments, coming during a spell where the mood around United has generally been better, but they were obviously said in a wider context, where Amorim had specific complaints.
On this match against Tottenham Hotspur, where United had a 1-0 lead on 84 minutes and were 2-1 down in the 91st, before another raucous late equaliser through Matthijs de Ligt, he said they needed to be “more aggressive”.
“We need to be more aggressive. The three points were there. The space was there. We were too comfortable… the game was there to take.”
He was broadly correct, even if Thomas Frank was himself correct in stating “on any other day, we win it”.
Those three late goals didn’t just give a false impression of how lively this otherwise poor game went, but probably gave a false impression of when the key period of the match was.
Sure, those frantic final moments may have directly settled everything, but it’s hard not to feel the true direction of the match was dictated in the half an hour before that.
United had been 1-0 up through the force of superior attacking players like Bryan Mbuemo, with Spurs generally quite ineffective as they tried to press. Against that, United created a series of openings on the break, from which they probably should have made victory secure.
Substitute Benjamin Sesko was put through twice, only to fail to get a shot off on both occasions. One was much more prominent than the other, as the exceptional Micky van de Ven was responsible for another fine intervention.
Against that, Senne Lammens did offer two excellent saves, as Spurs started to bombard the other end.
United had started to cede ground and lose “a flow”, as Frank put it.
His own subs turned the game Spurs’ way, as Amorim’s subs similarly turned it away from United.
As much as all of this might have created conflicting feelings about a match between two very incomplete sides, there was also a strange clarity to it.
The final result – and even the way the game went – was a very direct product of the obvious issues these sides have. You might even say it was entirely inevitable.
Amorim was correct, even if he seemed overly strident in just baldly stating “we have a lot of problems”.
United initially went ahead because they have a lot of individual attacking quality, where Spurs are currently lacking. Frank has so many first-choice forwards out right now. That has put an undue onus on Xavi Simons, who is himself rather erratic.
You could sense a greater purpose to United’s attacks, more of a bite. So it was as Mbuemo headed in from Amad Diallo’s cross, after Amorim’s side had created chaos around the Spurs box.
It didn’t help that so many defenders stood off, which seemed distinctively unFrank-like.
The Dane did have slow starts in his two previous jobs, though. It is too easy to forget this is a team still learning a new way. He deserves patience in that regard, especially as so many personnel are absent.
This was why United should have closed it out on going ahead, but there are also rational reasons as to why they didn’t.
Amorim still doesn’t have a proper midfield. Casemiro, good as he has been, can’t give you 90 minutes in the way he used to. United ceded control.
This isn’t a surprise, since it’s well known that their next targets are midfielders – mostly, Carlos Baleba.
Within that, though, there is perhaps a more direct criticism of Amorim as he does seem overly active with substitutions that don’t always help.
Frank won the day there, even if he didn’t win the game.
Mathys Tel scored six minutes after coming on, fashioning a strike from nothing. It was still Wilson Odobert that made the main difference, and he probably deserved the goal that Richarlison ultimately claimed through a slight deflection.
Odobert’s delivery had been divine.
At the end of all that, though, something else is clear. These are two incomplete squads playing for their managers.
Spurs showed it in how they came back. United showed it in how they claimed yet another key late goal.
There was even a touch of redemption for the otherwise excellent De Ligt, since he had been a bit loose for Tel’s goal. And yet, there he was, powering in that late equaliser.
United repeated what they did last week against Nottingham Forest, with the same scoreline, albeit in a slightly different way.
Spurs endured some of the same recent issues, although with a slightly different outcome.
It left a match of conflicting impressions, but it’s also completely clear where both sides are.
Both can have reasons for encouragement, so long as obvious problems are solved.
