Amorim gets taste of reality as Ipswich rally

It was plainly too good to be true. Or to last. There were 82 seconds on the stadium clock when the Ruben Amorim era at Manchester United was jumpstarted.

- David Hytner

The new head coach had put his faith in Marcus Rashford in the No 9 role and it was United's great enigma who put them in front. Rashford charged about in the early running, a point to prove.

And yet it was the prompt for a slow retreat by United for the remainder of the first half. The structure was different, United set up in Amorim's trademark 3-4-2-1, but the players were the same, along with plenty of the frustrations and faultlines from Erik ten Hag's tenure. Control proved elusive. As it did so often under Ten Hag.

Ipswich were the better team before the interval and the excellent Omari Hutchinson got the goal they deserved before the end of it with a shot from distance that took a deflection off Noussair Mazraoui. Ipswich had won for the first time this season at Tottenham before the international break. This was in point-gained territory for them.

Not so for United. After all of the talking, Amorim's arrival feeling like the coming of the messiah, it was time for United to fire some optimism. They could not do it. They were a bit better in the second period but not hugely and it looked as though the players had too much to process in terms of instructions. It all became stilted. Then again, as everyone knows, most of all Amorim, it will take time. He has only had two training sessions with the full squad.