Late chaos is indicative of sides with clear problems

Mbeumo (32), De Ligt (90+6) Ruben Amorim couldn’t help wincing. It had just been put to the Manchester United manager that this was another game they failed to make secure, and his facial expression unintentionally made his thoughts clear. He then very intentionally made his thoughts clear.

- MIGUEL DELANEY

This wildly swinging 2-2 draw at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium had seemed like a match where it was hard to know how to feel, a response that was oddly fitting since it was between two teams where it’s hard to know exactly where they are.

Not so for Amorim. He very much knew how he felt.

“We have a lot of problems. I know. People see results and think we are improving.”

These were surprisingly strident comments, coming during a spell where the mood around United has generally been better, but they were obviously said in a wider context, where Amorim had specific complaints.

On this match against Tottenham Hotspur, where United had a 1-0 lead on 84 minutes and were 2-1 down in the 91st, before another raucous late equaliser through Matthijs de Ligt, he said they needed to be “more aggressive”.

“We need to be more aggressive. The three points were there. The space was there. We were too comfortable... the game was there to take.”

He was broadly correct, even if Thomas Frank was himself correct in stating “on any other day, we win it”.

Those three late goals didn't just give a false impression of how lively this otherwise poor game went, but probably gave a false impression of when the key period of the match was.

Sure, those frantic final moments may have directly settled everything, but it's hard not to feel the true direction of the match was dictated in the half an hour before that.