At the end of another home win for Brentford against Manchester United, the Bees fans finally found their voice.
“Bryan, what’s the score?”, they chanted towards their former player Bryan Mbuemo, who left to join United for a big fee in the close season.
Most of the home fans weren’t watching Brentford five years ago, the Premier League is new to them after their ascent through the divisions. But Saturday's big-name opponents are now regularly vanquished visitors. This latest result, a bruising 3-1 defeat for beleaguered boss Ruben Amorim was United's third in the last four at Brentford.
“You should have stayed at a big club!”, the home fans mocked. There were no smiles from Mbeumo, as there had been before the game when he saw his former teammates.
Brentford are punching well above their weight. They recruit well, sell well and often play well, but even the positives which surround them were questioned before they welcomed United to West London.
The Bees, who lost their manager and best players in the summer, had suffered their worst start to a league season since the days when they averaged 6,000 for games at their old Griffin Park home.
Yet even an out-of-form Brentford were too good for United, fully deserving their win against a side utterly incapable of achieving a shred of consistency.
Striker Igor Thiago did much of the damage with a double before a stoppage-time strike from Mathias Jensen. Slovenia striker Benjamin Sesko reduced the Bees’ early lead with his first United goal, but a Bruno Fernandes penalty miss – his second of the season – piled on the misery for the visitors.
United had an uninterrupted week to prepare for the game amid an improved mood after last week's win against Chelsea, with excellent training and renewed hope.
Amorim said he was going into the game with no fear, unlike last season. There were statistics and data showing signs of improvement and the optimism outside the tiny away end was fragile but evident before the lunchtime kick off.
The three big summer forward signings – Sesko, Mbuemo and Matheus Cunha – were playing together for the first time in a league game, surely it was time for Amorim to finally record back-to-back league wins.
And then the game started and an abject United were 2-0 down within 20 minutes, on their way to a terrible result with terrible goals conceded in a significant game. The away section emptied long before the end.
And then, in the post-match press conference, the same type of questions, the same type of answers as we’ve been getting far too often. The National asked Amorim: “How can your team achieve consistency?” – something so evidently lacking.
“We have to work on everything,” he replied. “All the goals we conceded today, we worked on them during the week. It’s frustrating. We can do better with the ball. We must understand when to calm things down when things aren’t going our way. I know this team is capable of it. When everything is against us we must show character.”
Fans want to believe what he’s saying, believe that his efforts will bear fruit, but his side have taken 32 points from 35 Premier League games. It’s relegation form.
Fans have forgotten what it’s like to watch a winning football team and the list of depressing statistics grows by the month. Saturday was the eighth away game without a win. Away matches in London bring defeat after defeat. This can’t go on.
There are many who delight in United’s failure, some who prosper from it and there will be plenty of noise in another week when United don’t have a game because of a failure to qualify for Europe.
Another defeat will dominate the headlines when another victory would have given the club a bounce. But it seems that United can’t manage to follow one victory with another.
Amorim is unflinchingly honest, but fans are getting bored and frustrated watching the same film, with the same ending.
Is it any wonder? The performance at Brentford was one of the worst since the Portuguese started last November. His side didn’t even look like a Manchester United side – and not because they were wearing a new third kit. They were flat and insipid, dull and ineffective.
United have won two of six league games. Fans hoped for better – they expected better.
And those fans, who backed Amorim last season to the point that outsiders were baffled by their loyalty, feel conflicted. Most wanted it to work for him; most now don’t think it will.
The mood has hardened. His results since last November, 10 long months, and they’re the main mood setter, have been awful. And football is a results business.
He keeps his job because there’s a long-term plan, because there’s patience, because there has been little appetite for yet another managerial change, but this can’t go on. It damages the club’s name as well as its finances, batters the hope that all football fans need. Faith is being lost.
Amorim’s players don’t help. Captain Fernandes, often a saviour last season, saw yet another penalty saved in West London, then screamed in frustration. Fans are unconvinced by what they watch, by the players, but also the tactical system which has been dissected, scrutinised and increasingly deemed unsuitable for the Premier League.
“When we win it’s not the system, when we lose it’s the system,” said Amorim in his own defence. “I understand that.
“I think it’s more that we play this game like Brentford wants to play this game. We’ve won balls, we’ve kicked the ball, second balls. And we never settle down our game. We never play our game. We never push the opponent. We knew that every time they recover the ball, they will make a run and they will fight for the ball. We suffered two goals like that. We managed to score one goal and then in the second half I think the penalty could change things. But overall view of the game, we never settle down into long possessions, long control of the game. We’re never there”.
He could have added the word ‘long’ a final time – Brentford’s long balls decimated United. They knew exactly how to exploit the set up. In isolation, a bad day at the office is just that, but most United games are bad ones. Opinion can turn quickly for better, like last week, or worse, like this.
A huge football club should not be living so emotionally on a week to week roller coaster, but United are. Fascinating to watch if you’re not invested, deeply frustrating if you are.
