Brentford 3-1 Man Utd (Thiago 8’, 20’, Jensen 90+5 | Sesko 26’)
GTECH COMMUNITY STADIUM – Another day of shame for Ruben Amorim, who spent much of his side’s defensive defenestration at Brentford crouched on the touchline. By the last knockings, his hands were over his ears. He would have been better off covering his eyes.
Maybe it was an attempt to block out the haters, who will once again be damning in their assessment. Even if he cannot hear them, calls for his head are reaching a crescendo.
There are two kinds of bloody-mindedness. The first, the kind of relentless energy which earned Benjamin Sesko his first Premier League goal after a double-save from Caoimhin Kelleher. The second is the type to which we are now accustomed to seeing from the dugout. Manchester United are being humiliated time and again by their manager’s intransigence.
Eight minutes were all it took for a graceless back three with all the mobility of a giant fridge to collapse. There is no iron law against Amorim’s 3-4-2-1 working but Luke Shaw, Harry Maguire and Matthijs de Ligt are not the defenders for it. However brilliant Igor Thiago’s volley for the opener, it was the laughable sight of Maguire as the last man on the halfway that summed it up.
Igor Thiago gives Brentford the lead against Man United within 8 minutes!
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) September 27, 2025
A rocket into the top corner
@tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/EkFDp3x18J
Amorim, 40, is sometimes still described as a rookie. Keith Andrews is a coach that tag actually applies to and he knew exactly how to exploit United from set pieces, how to enforce in the middle – until Kobbie Mainoo came on – and with Jordan Henderson’s exquisite long balls over the top.
When Brentford fans are no longer sweating on their inability to defend a lead and instead resort to ridiculing Bryan Mbeumo – “you should have stayed at a big club” – you know it’s bad. Newcastle and Tottenham wanted him; he must be second-guessing now.
One thing Amorim cannot be accused of is making it up as he goes along. Nothing ever changes. Mainoo is one of the few midfielders able to string a few passes together and yet neither he, nor Leny Yoro, United’s most composed defender, start, chucked on for the last 25. Senne Lammens still hasn’t made his debut even as the goals pour in past Altay Bayindir. Shaw and Maguire were finally hooked, and the back three remained.
Shaw had been nowhere near the second ball for Thiago’s second, but it feels increasingly as if he is a sacrificial lamb thrown under the bus. Playing him as a left-sided centre-back stifles his best qualities and exposes his worst. Bruno Fernandes at centre-mid can understand that, though the fluffing of United’s potential equaliser from the spot is all on him.
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There is no justification for choosing these hills to die on when United are this appalling. If Mainoo is to have any hope of a future at Old Trafford, these are the games you expect him to start, when United at least have some prospect of dominating the ball. It is not as simple as just throwing Mainoo in as a No 6 – he needs a warmonger alongside him, a combative ball-winner like Carlos Baleba would have been.
As Matheus Jensen slammed in a third in injury time, the damning outcome of all this was that Amorim has still not overseen consecutive league wins, squandering any good will from the Chelsea game. The only mitigating factors were Amad Diallo’s absence due to a bereavement, and that Lisandro Martinez is still missing.
Amorim would mark a year in charge of United on 1 November. It is hard to see how he can make it to that anniversary, unless something changes – and it is not going to be his ideas.
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