EPL: Man United Suffer Second Straight Loss; Man City Stumble Again
Ruben Amorim’s honeymoon at Manchester United is officially over, as Nottingham Forest handed his side a second consecutive Premier League defeat in a thrilling encounter at Old Trafford on Saturday. With the loss, United finds itself languishing in 13th place, while Forest’s victory sees them rise to fifth in the table.
Amorim, who replaced the sacked Erik ten Hag last month, started his tenure with promise, securing a draw and two wins in his first three matches. However, the harsh realities of Premier League football have begun to surface. After a disappointing 2-0 defeat at Arsenal earlier in the week, United faced a resurgent Forest team that capitalized on defensive mistakes.
The match began with a shocker for United as Nikola Milenkovic opened the scoring for Forest. Forward Rasmus Hojlund quickly leveled the score, only for Morgan Gibbs-White and Chris Wood to put the visitors in control.
A particularly embarrassing moment came for United’s goalkeeper, Andre Onana, who failed to deal with a swerving shot from Gibbs-White, before Wood’s looping header sealed the deal. Despite Bruno Fernandes pulling one back, United could not find the equalizer.
In his post-match comments, a visibly disappointed Amorim stated, “Tough game in a tough moment, but we have to continue the job. This is a long journey. We are improving in some aspects. We have to win games to help us improve the team.”
Meanwhile, in a surprising turn of events, Manchester City stumbled again, managing only a 2-2 draw against Crystal Palace. Pep Guardiola’s squad had hoped to climb to second in the table but instead found themselves eight points adrift of the leaders, Liverpool.
After going behind to Daniel Munoz’s early goal, City equalized through Erling Haaland’s towering header. However, another Palace strike from Maxence Lacroix saw City trailing once more. Rico Lewis managed to level the game again, only to receive a red card late in the match. Guardiola praised his team’s resilience, saying, “We fought incredible. We came back twice.”
Elsewhere, Liverpool maintained their seven-point lead at the top of the table despite their match against Everton being postponed due to severe storms. This postponement opens the door for Arsenal and Chelsea to close the gap with matches on Sunday against Fulham and Tottenham, respectively.
Brentford continued their impressive home form with a 4-2 victory over Newcastle, while Aston Villa secured a narrow 1-0 win against bottom-of-the-table Southampton thanks to Jhon Duran’s first Premier League goal.
