BIG STEP FORWARD FOR SHAW

IT seems unthinkable, as he approaches a year in charge of Manchester United, that Ruben Amorim has failed to win back-to-back Premier League games.

- BY DAVID MCDONNELL

Amorim's record of nine wins from 32 in the league is pitiful, but of just as much concern is his inability to carry over the winning formula from those triumphs into the next game.

At Brentford on Saturday lunchtime, Amorim will once again try to string successive league wins together and build on the momentum and confidence gained from Saturday's gritty 2-1 win over Chelsea at a rain-lashed Old Trafford. Victory at the Gtech Community Stadium in the early kickoff would propel United to the dizzy heights of a top-five place, before the later games kick off.

But more importantly, it would provide tangible proof of the progress Amorim claims to see every day in training, but has yet to be translated into matches in terms of consistency of results and performance.