Ipswich Town 1, Manchester United 1
Ruben Amorim’s first game in charge of Manchester United saw them come away from Portman Road having drawn 1-1 against Ipswich Town.
Embed from Getty ImagesFor 81 seconds United, playing in a new 4-3-2-1 formation under their new Portuguese boss, made it look easy against the Tractor Boys as Amad Diallo raided the right flank and found Marcus Rashford – selected at centre forward in the first Amorim lineup – to put the Reds 1-0 up with less than 2 minutes on the clock.
But it was their hosts who had the better chances and perhaps should have scored at least a couple of them as ex-City striker Liam Delap was twice thwarted by United’s man of the match Andre Onana either side of Omari Hutchinson’s equaliser.
The fact that Hutchinson levelled matters late in the first half for the home side was almost expected by the side coached by ex-United coach Kieran McKenna who took the reins at Ipswich Town in 2021 and led them directly to the Premier League from League One after back to back promotions.
Hutchinson’s goal – a curling effort that took a fortuitous deflection off Noussair Mazraoui’s head to wrong foot Onana – was the least the Suffolk side deserved.
United offered little in the second half and Onana also saved a late effort by Conor Chaplin.
After the game Amorim admitted that United would have to “suffer” and appeared to be “thinking too much” during the game.
“They are really trying to take in the information and use it during the game.
“We should have kept more of the ball, the guys were too stuck because they were thinking about where they should be.
“With this schedule we need to rotate the team so we can improve and win matches.
“These players only had two days to train. We will suffer for a long time but we will try to win games.”
The Reds will have precious little time to implement tweaks by Amorim as the games will come thick and fast – the next one is a visit from Norwegian side Bodo/Glimt in the Europa League on Thursday.