Manchester United's woes worsen after Wood leads Nottingham Forest to victory | first division

To Ruben Amorim's recent buzzwords of “suffer” and “storm”, the Manchester United manager can add “defend” after a horror show in the guilty rearguard of the three. Nottingham Forest goals.

As Amorim had mentioned before kick-off, the stormy conditions were no excuse, as the Old Trafford bowl offers protection, while André Onana, Matthijs de Ligt, Lisandro Martínez and Leny Yoro are elite players.

However, the goalkeeper and three central defenders made mistakes that left United chasing the game throughout and, although they finished strongly, there was no lack of finesse needed to achieve a late equalizer – Martínez's volley was their closest miss. .

Citing that United are not currently a “massive team”, Amorim was preparing for displays like this. Judging by how Forest have prospered, England's record 20-time champions will remain quite small for some time to come.

Amorim has also talked about getting to know his players. Well, after both goals in Wednesday's 2-0 loss to Arsenal came from corners, Martinez and De Ligt failed to impress by losing Nikola Milenkovic to Elliot Anderson's second-minute pass from the right quadrant. The defender got up to head the ball and beat a standing Onana.

The coach is also guilty of this, since his job is to exercise resistance to set pieces. For someone of his reputation overseeing three consecutive goals from corners is a black mark against him.

His midweek selection was also questionable. After scoring two goals in United's last home game, Sunday's 4-0 win over EvertonAmorim left out Marcus Rashford and Joshua Zirkzee at Arsenal and has now done the same.

Instead, Rasmus Højlund and Alejandro Garnacho remained on the front line. The former, who replaced Zirkzee up front, wasted a golden opportunity when Bruno Fernandes ran forward and touched Garnacho, who floated the ball where the Dane wanted. But, jumping, he completely missed a point-blank header and Forest escaped.

As in the first half at Arsenal, United pinged the ball, pushed their opponents, and from there the tie emerged. De Ligt found Fernandes, who recycled the ball to Manuel Ugarte. He passed Garnacho behind a dawdling rearguard, the Argentine invaded the ball, Matz Sels blocked his shot and Højlund's shot hit the open goal.

Yoro, however, became the last of Amorim's three centre-backs to be beaten aerially on a set piece, on his full debut. Murillo's free kick spiraled into the United area: the Frenchman was overtaken by Ryan Yates, who lost the ball. Jota Silva's header hit the crossbar.

A few inches lower and Amorim would have to answer questions about another concession on a dead ball and there was another miss when Murillo missed after a delivery from the right.

Towards the end of the half, Garnacho missed a shot and Fernandes hit the crossbar with a free kick, but they were moments and their initial control is now just a memory.

Bosque's second came in the second minute of the second half and resulted from the misfortune of Fernandes and Onana. Targeting Yoro, the United captain located Callum Hudson-Odoi. The winger passed to Morgan Gibbs-White and although there was some curvature to his shot, it was marginal and Onana still allowed the ball to pass.

Two to one soon became 3-1 for the impressive visitors and this time Yoro, De Ligt, Martínez and Onana came into their own. It was too simple: Gibbs-White kept the ball to the far post, Yoro failed to challenge Chris Wood and his header missed, ridiculously on the part of De Ligt, Martínez and Onana, who seemed to blame each other.

Amorim replaced Garnacho with Rashford. There was just over half an hour left for United to pull this out of the fire and the change worked instantly. A sublime volley pass from Fernandes took Amad Diallo into the Forest box. He waited, returned possession to the Portuguese, and a pirouette and shot into the left corner was admirable.

In the end, Zirkzee, Rashford and Højlund were in the top three, but to no avail. It left you wondering why Amorim lost the top two after his match-winning performances against Everton. Since then, United have lost twice.