Wayne Rooney makes brutal 'lack of knowhow' claim about Man Utd as pundits left baffled by Ruben Amorim's 'bizarre' system after Brentford defeat

Ruben Amorim handed youngsters Chido Obi-Martin, Harry Amass, and Tyler Fredricson starts as he fielded an inexperienced starting lineup against Brentford in the Premier League on Sunday. The Bees raced into a 4-1 lead in the match and the Red Devils then scored two late goals. This was the club's 16th defeat in the current Premier League campaign, as they remained winless in their last six games.

United legend and pundit Rooney made a scathing assessment of Amorim's tactics on Match of the Day 2 as he also slammed experienced players like Kobbie Mainoo. Taking a cue from Rooney, ex-Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy said: “It is about intensity, but with wingbacks, different to a back four, it allows you to go and press because you’ve got the extra centre half behind you. But surely that’s what they do in training, no? If you’re a coach of a system – the basics of this system with wingbacks is they press the wide men quick and it doesn’t look like they’re doing it. It’s bizarre for me to see.”

The former English striker then replied: “It’s strange, because that’s why you play a back five with wingbacks. They have to put pressure on the ball or otherwise you get outnumbered in the midfield and the ball comes back into midfield. It was strange, but they had a lot of young players.

"There was a lack of movement and a lack of knowhow on the pitch. They’ve got a 17-year-old lad up front – the youngest ever to start up front for United – and they’re just launching balls up to him. I really felt for Obi today because you can tell he’s inexperienced but it looked like he had no help, they were just throwing balls up to him."

Murphy further added: "I get that there’s young players, I understand that and they’re playing against good teams. But he (Amorim) only plays one system, he’s not mixing things up, personnel and system and he’s been there a while now. When you play a system that much and you work on it in training, surely we can see more improvement, irrelevant of who is playing because they should be organised in that system."

To which Rooney responded: "You’d think so, but I think the second team are playing a back four, which I found strange, because those players who are coming into the first team now with the under-23s or under-21s are playing a different system. For me, that’s a bit confusing. Getting to the Europa League final is papering over a lot of cracks for Manchester United and that needs solving quickly."

The Red Devils will aim to secure a place in the final of the Europa League as they take on Athletic Club in the second leg of their last-four stage on Thursday. The English side are carrying a 3-0 lead from the first leg.