Gary Neville highlights two major points of criticism for Man Utd boss Amorim

Martin Macdonald

• 29 Sep 2025 05:00 CDT
• 4 min read

News

Gary Neville has highlighted two major areas of concern following another Manchester United defeat, with criticism sent in Ruben Amorim's direction again.

On Saturday afternoon, the Red Devils were defeated 3-1 away at Brentford which means they have won two, drawn one and lost three of their opening six Premier League matches.

They are currently 14th in the table.

Last campaign was Man Utd's worst ever in the Premier League but there was renewed optimism in the summer as Amorim took charge of a full pre-season as well as a summer transfer window.

It seems the same frailties haven't went away, though, and the Portuguese has received criticism for his staunch refusal to budge from his preferred 3-4-3 formation.

"There was something that happened in that game yesterday that I mentioned on my podcast two or three weeks ago that I said we couldn't see again... when you're putting Mason Mount at left wing-back and he's ended up at left wing-back again yesterday in the last five minutes to the game, it starts to look awful," Neville said on Sky Sports.

"Ruben Amorim’s had a pre-season. He's had a week now in between each of his games nearly or most of the weeks because Manchester United aren't in Europe. Yet, the performances are as poor as ever. The results are catastrophic really in Manchester United terms.

"You can't put Mason Mount at left wing-back. I'm sorry, it just can't happen. I can't… I can't watch Mason Mount play left wing back in a football team. I struggle at times to watch him in in his position, but actually putting him out there on the left wing is just or left wing back is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.

"The manager's obviously a good coach. He's had a great record in Portugal, but it's not clicking at all. It's not clicking. And the thing is for me, when I said just before, maybe I didn't finish what I was going to say, but it looked to me like I said, the players and the ideas are not connecting at all. You could just see the body language in their faces."

In 42 of his 49 games in charge of Man United, Ruben Amorim has subbed on a centre back 😳 pic.twitter.com/wdlAYUrFfp

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) September 27, 2025

Neville also criticised Amorim for constantly changing his back three during matches.

"The other thing that I've said, and I said it under [Erik] ten Hag towards the end, he keeps changing his back four," the pundit continued.

"That's what I used to say under Ten Hag. He didn't play with the back five. Kept changing his back four, his centre-backs... You cannot continually keep changing your back three and back five. It's impossible. I mean, that is the sort of part of the pitch where you need reliability and you need continuity to build relationships."

Under the former Sporting CP boss, United have conceded 75 goals in 49 games while winning just nine out of 33 Premier League games.

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