Neville: Man Utd horror show was 'baddest of the bad' - and it's all on Amorim

Tom Weber
Tom Weber
  • 31 Dec 2025 10:30 CST
  • 2 min read
Gary Neville, Man Utd
© IMAGO

Gary Neville has placed the blame squarely at the feet of Ruben Amorim after Manchester United slumped to a dire 1-1 draw with Wolves.

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Man Utd, having won at 4-1 at Molineux earlier this month and coming off a 1-0 victory over Newcastle, were the clear favourites when they hosted a Wolves side that had not picked up a single point since October on Tuesday evening.

However, Rob Edwards' team, who are on course for a historically bad Premier League campaign, came away with a deserved point from Old Trafford as Amorim's inconsistent Red Devils failed to turn up.

Joshua Zirkzee opened the scoring with a rare goal in the 27th minute, but Ladislav Krejci equalised on the stroke of half-time. Wolves actually had the better chances in the second half and could have won the game, although they were also lucky not to concede a bizarre own goal.

This result means that Man Utd have now won only two of their past six matches and three in the last 10, leaving Amorim's side sixth in the table after 19 games.

Neville: Amorim to blame for Wolves performance

Speaking after the game, Man Utd legend Gary Neville pinned the blame for this dire performance on Amorim. He believes that the Portuguese made life more difficult for himself by changing the winning formula of the Newcastle match.

Neville admitted that he was baffled by Amorim's decision to revert to his back-three system and to move Patrick Dorgu back into the defence after being impressed by him on the right wing against Newcastle.

He described the performance as "the baddest of the bad" and viewed it as a major setback after a couple of more encouraging outings against Newcastle and Bournemouth.

Neville also suggested that, judging by Amorim's recent press conferences, the media has got into the coach's head and made him second-guess himself.

"I do think tonight the manager has to look at that and think, 'I got that wrong, I complicated it, we just needed simplicity,'" Neville concluded.

"Playing Zirkzee in that right channel, playing Dorgu at left wing-back, playing [Diogo] Dalot at right wing-back and then the substitutions, again, they made Man Utd worse. Every single substitution was bizarre."

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