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Manchester United managed a 2-1 victory over Viktoria Plzen this evening in the Europa League, but it was a far from impressive performance.
United would have been severely punished against a better team, having made more defensive blunders than could be counted on the fingers of both hands.
The same calamitous decision making that dogged Erik ten Hag’s managerial reign were once again on display tonight under new head coach, Ruben Amorim.
Noussair Mazraou, Matthijs de Ligt, Mason Mount, Diogo Dalot and Andre Onana were all among the stars whose stray passes in and around the United box fell to Viktoria forwards, with the latter’s being the only one that was punished.
There was also a familiar story up front, when golden chances were squandered, including one by Mason Mount and one by Amad.
A third familiar sight from the Ten Hag era was the lack of composure when taking the lead. Rather than keeping possession and calming the game down, United went into counter-attacking mode, inviting pressure and giving the Czechs chance after chance to get back into it – chances they fortunately did not take.
Déjà vu was also to be found in the inexplicably poor performance of Marcus Rashford, discussed elsewhere.
Andre Onana, too, produced one of his worst performances for some time as he joined in the general regression.
This was the sixth game of the Amorim era and one would hope by now we would be starting to see some progression from the chaos ball of Ten Hag.
However, this – even more than the two defeats against Arsenal and Nottingham Forest – was the performance that most closely resembled those that got the Dutchman sacked in October.
Thanks to some superb performances from the likes of Bruno Fernandes, Amad and substitute Rasmus Hojlund, United ended the evening with a win and took a big step closer to advancing in the competition.
However, Amorim must have been horrified at what he saw and now has to find a way to regroup and get his side firing in time for the Manchester derby.
Even though they themselves are struggling with their own demons at the moment, City will surely not miss the kinds of opportunities Viktoria did tonight if presented with them on Sunday.
Featured image Gabriel Kuchta via Getty Images
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