Ruben and his Reds got what was a HUGE 3 points at a ground where victories have been scarce over the years.
After their dismal display at home to Everton a week ago, the United boss was in desperate need of a result at Palace. That's exactly what he got however, many questions remain despite win.
1. Lack Of Team Changes
Two. Two was all the changes Amorim made to the lineup that was embarrassing against Everton.
How can he not make four or five after watching that absolute shitshow?
These are the type of things that cause us to think he definitely has his favourties and that he doesn't know what he's doing.
Ahead of the game, in my livestream on TikTok (give me a follow 👍) over 90% of those in the chat were angry with the selection. All of them said they would've loved to have seen Mainoo given a chance, push Shaw to LWB, start Martinez, and play Bruno further forward instead of Zirkzee.
Yes starting the Dutchman worked out but one couldn't be blamed for wanting him dropped.
The weird thing about Amorim is that even after how Zirkzee and Mount played with both scoring, it will be interesting to see what the manager does on Thursday against West Ham when Cunha returns. I wouldn't be surprised if he does drop either one of them because he did bench Sesko when he scored back-to-back.
If he did so, he would be so contradictory which is something we've said on many occasions.
2. Stop This Long Throw-In Crap!
I know it's part of the game. I know you can use whatever means to try and score. But it really is so anti-football. It's not pretty on the eyes and nor is it the football we want to see.
It says to me that we don't know what else to do in terms of how to create chances. It says to me that we look for these moments to win long throw-ins and all types of set-pieces in order to score because we are too shite to create anything from open play.
And that ain't a good thing, brev.
We created nothing from open play which is what Oliver Glasner said post-match and he's right. I don't remember us having a good chance. Dean Henderson didn't have much to do. The best opportunity we had other than the goals was from the long throw-in where Casemiro almost scored in the opening minutes.
It goes back to that thing of we are a counter-attacking side and can only play against teams that are possession-based and more open, and also one who looks for set-pieces as a means of scoring.
This begs the question of what do we do on the training ground all week to have to rely on set-pieces to score? We are joint-top with Arsenal for goals from set-pieces.
3. Doesn't Rate Youngsters
There’s something about our manager that he seems to not like young players.
How many youngsters do we see in the starting XI? How many academy products do we actually play? We do see some on the bench but it looks to be more about maintaining our record of having at least one academy player in the match day squad for 80+ years.
Yoro is the only one yet we’ve seen him dropped for Maguire a few times as well as be substituted on many occasions.
That was the case at Palace too.
I didn’t have a problem with the change itself. Yoro was poor and gave away the penalty so kind of deserved to be changed. Bringing Mazraoui on in that right centre-back position was a good player to bring on as that is his best position.
But it’s the message it sends.
Yoro had a bad game and got rightfully hooked. But how many others were bad in that first half? How many others were bad all season?
Amorim has this reluctance to not treat senior players in the same way he does youngsters.
Yoro bad game = off.
He mentioned in his pre-match presser how Dorgu makes him anxious whenever he’s in possession and that he needs to be calmer with the ball. We’ve seen how he’s treated Mainoo by not playing him that much even though the midfield has been awful. He brought the two of them on with 4 minutes of added time to go to add further humiliation.
What are they going to do in that time?
I get that playing youngsters is a risk and we’re in no position to be taking risks but playing Bruno and Casemiro in midfield is a risk, playing Mount who’s injury prone is a risk, moving players out of position is a risk.
You just never know with young players how they could affect a game.
I also believe it may knock the confidence of these youngsters. To publicly say and do these things to them is very un-Man Utd-like as we are all about the youth.
This doesn’t win the manager any favours.
4. Getting Away With It
I think this type of football with these team selections, poor substitutions and lack of in-game management is unsustainable.
I believe Amorim is getting away with it.
Almost every game sees a disagreement from fans with the lineup that is picked. The manager himself can't even decide on a settled XI which creates a lack of rhythm and momentum. We all want to see certain player changes and a certain amount of changes to the lineup yet the manager never does it. And whenever he does, it isn't the changes we want.
He usually selects the same team and plays in the same manner with very little difference in what we see.
Palace looked to be tired in the second half which helped us and I know this is hindsight but I feel as though if they hadn’t played in France on Thursday, we don’t win that game. It’s almost as if much has to go really right for us or much has to go really wrong for the opposition in order to get a positive result.
What I’m trying to say with all of this is that, I don’t know where we go from here.
These selections and tactics look like survival football that can work for the now but isn’t for the long-term.
Even when things go wrong (Everton) there isn’t much change in the next game. At some point, I have this dreadful feeling that it will go utterly wrong and there will be no turning back.
5. Martinez Is Back!
This was a major positive.
To see the butcher make his return against the side that he picked up the ACL injury was a sight to behold.
We do play better with him than without (even though it’s hard to remember due to his long absence) but what he brings to the team is not something others do. That composure and ability on the ball is good enough to play in midfield which is something else he can do: step into midfield.
He is also a leader, top defender, experienced and maintains that balance in defense as he is a left-footer.
I feel that this should be the moment where we start to him play in that position. Amorim has said a lot of positive things regarding Martinez so I can see him playing more regularly from here on.
Hopefully 🤞.
Mason Mount scores winner in Man Utd's 2-1 victory at Crystal Palace | Mason Mount - Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)