Ruben Amorim believes Manchester United are in for a “long journey” to return to the top after their 3-2 loss to Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
The defeat condemned United to back-to-back Premier League losses under Amorim for the first time since August 2022, when he was in charge of Sporting CP.
Forest’s victory at Old Trafford, their first in 30 years, left United languishing in 13th place with just 19 points after 15 games—their lowest tally at this stage since the 1986-87 season.
“We already knew [it would be tough],” Amorim said. “It will be a long journey but we want to win because this is a massive club. You feel it, when you lose one game it’s really hard for everybody.”
United’s defensive errors played a key role in the loss, with Nikola Milenković opening the scoring with a header following a poor defensive jump by Lisandro MartÃnez.
Bruno Fernandes’ misplaced pass and a blunder from goalkeeper André Onana allowed Morgan Gibbs-White to score, and more defensive mistakes led to Chris Wood’s third.
“I had this and worse in Sporting in the beginning,” Amorim revealed.
“The feeling for me is the same but for the world it’s completely different. You know Sporting in Portugal but Manchester [United] has a lot of attention.”
Amorim, who was appointed Manchester United manager this season, insisted that the team must remain focused on improving.
“We need time and to continue to work in the same way every day,” he said.
“We have to manage to continue to do the same things and improve the team because this will turn around.”
