Matthijs de Ligt has insisted that Manchester United players must take responsibility for the club’s poor results amid growing pressure on manager Rúben Amorim. United suffered their third defeat in six Premier League games this season after losing 3-1 at Brentford on Saturday. The disappointment was compounded by an earlier humiliating exit at the hands of League Two side Grimsby in the Carabao Cup.
Portuguese boss Amorim has yet to oversee back-to-back league wins during his 10 months in charge. Following last season’s 15th-place finish — United’s lowest position since 1989–90 — the club once again finds itself in the bottom half of the Premier League table.
“Of course, I mean it’s always easy to look to the manager, but in the end the players on the pitch have to do it,” said centre-back De Ligt. “We can’t say the goals we conceded, or the chances we conceded, are because of what. I don’t know, you guys always talk about the system. That also has a lot to do with focus, concentration and, if that’s lacking in key moments, it’s going to make a difference.”
United had seemingly built some confidence by beating Chelsea 2-1 a week earlier, although they enjoyed a numerical advantage for most of the first half of that Old Trafford contest due to Robert Sánchez’s early red card. However, that victory was soon forgotten as Brentford striker Igor Thiago scored twice inside 20 minutes at the Brentford Community Stadium.
After Benjamin Šeško pulled one back with his first goal for United, captain Bruno Fernandes failed to convert a penalty in the final quarter, with Liverpool goalkeeper Caoimhín Kelleher making the save. It was Fernandes’ second spot-kick miss of the season, having previously blasted over the bar at Fulham last month.
“We are really disappointed because all week we were speaking about keeping the momentum going, getting another win under our belt,” De Ligt said. “If you lose this game, it’s a big blow, obviously. A lot of the time (it is) the same song, but we have to stick together. It’s the most important thing.”
De Ligt continued: “We lost against Manchester City, we won against Chelsea, so for the next game, we have to analyse what went wrong in this game because a lot of things went wrong. We were short in key moments where we made the wrong decisions. That makes a big difference in football. We were quite unlucky also with some chances, but overall, it was not good enough. That’s a fact.”
Looking ahead, United will host in-form Sunderland on Saturday before visiting league leaders Liverpool straight after the international break on October 19.
On a day that United summer signing Bryan Mbeumo returned to Brentford after spending six years at the club, it was Igor Thiago who took centre stage. The Brazilian forward, signed from Club Brugge for a then-club record £30 million in July 2023, has scored five goals this season, four of them in the Premier League.
Bees boss Keith Andrews praised Thiago’s contribution: “Selfless, I think, would be the first thing that springs to mind. He always puts the team first, sometimes at the detriment of his own performance. I think he’s such a team player. He’s getting real rhythm in his game now and confidence in his game, and he’s shown exactly what he’s all about and why the football club brought him here.”
https://www.breakingnews.ie/sport/matthijs-de-ligt-man-utd-players-must-step-up-as-pressure-grows-on-ruben-amorim-1812249.html