Gary Neville has declared this to be Ruben Amorim’s best week in the job after Manchester United made it three wins in a row in the Premier League with a 4-2 victory over Brighton on Saturday and believes the template is there for a top-six finish.
Matheus Cunha scored his first goal for the club and Bryan Mbeumo added two goals to his total in the second half as United built on their win over Liverpool at Anfield.
“I think that it feels like his best week in the job,” Neville told Sky Sports.
“I think where we’ve all been with it, I wouldn’t have been surprised if we talked about him losing his job. I was thinking he was under massive pressure after going into the international break in October. I felt as though that change could be imminent.
“But the victory at Anfield shows you how things can turn around and then obviously this was so important today.
“He’s not out of the woods yet and it’s certainly not time to get carried away but I think Manchester United are now where they thought they probably would be.
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from Manchester United’s match against Brighton
“They’ll slip down a couple of places after the rest of the teams play and they’ll end up in sixth or seventh but that’s where I think everyone thought they would be.
“So, look, this has been a very important week for the manager and for the club and you can see the celebration at the end there was more than just a little bit of relief that, yeah, we needed this badly.
“A few weeks ago I was a little bit worried that the players didn’t believe in Ruben Amorim’s system, that maybe there was an element of them not winning matches and starting to question it, listening to the noise that all of us, including myself, had added to that.
“However, one thing that’s been absolutely not in doubt when you speak to people in and around the club is that the players really like him as a person and that does count for a lot.
“Because I think there’s no doubt he’s not lost the dressing room in terms of spirit and energy and how they feel towards him. They want to play for him, they’re desperate to win and you’ve seen that coming together a little bit in the last week.
“I mean, winning at Anfield in any season is special but for Ruben Amorim to win at Anfield when it was so unexpected, that has given them such a big lift.
“We’ll look forward to the game next week against Nottingham Forest, Tottenham away the week after. There’s still a big job to do in this month but I felt as though it was a month of reckoning. If it had started badly last week at Liverpool, it could have gone a different way.
“It feels very different, it feels like the momentum’s with them a little bit and the spirit’s good.”
Mbeumo and Cunha key
Neville pointed to Mbeumo and Cunha’s encouraging form when asked what he still wants to see to be convinced by United.
“I suppose consistency. It’s been a team and a club that you can’t really rely on for so long.
“The idea of winning two or three matches doesn’t take that away. You can’t build that trust back in an instant. That’s still not there but I think that there’s something happening there.
“With Mbeumo and Cunha the risk was removed from those signings in the sense that they’ve been in the Premier League before and they’ve got that hunger to deliver at a different level.
“There was a lot of things about those signings that you felt more comfortable with and when I look at United now and Mbeumo looks like he belongs, he looks hungry, he looks like he wants to score goals.
“It wasn’t quite happening for him and Cunha in the first maybe four or five matches when they were getting into the positions they always wanted the ball but they weren’t maybe taking their chances.
“But Manchester United have got something to build on. Those two will win a lot of football matches for this club.
“If you can keep that back five compact and among them there’s some decent defenders, half-decent defenders, that back five can just stay solid and the midfield in front, let them two up front go and do what they do.
“I think it could be sort of a recipe for Manchester United to have a decent season to get into the top six.”
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Neville reacted with pride after being inducted into the Premier League Hall of Fame
Question marks over Sesko
The third member of United’s attacking triumvirate has not made such a big impression just yet. Benjamin Sesko came back into the team after being benched for the win at Liverpool but did not get among the goals.
“There are question marks over Sesko,” said Neville. “He obviously was a bigger risk of a signing and a lot more of an unknown. He doesn’t quite look like he’s settled in yet.
“It’s more than the goals. It’s the inclusion within the actual combinations that you see from the others. You see Bruno Fernandes and [Mason] Mount, who wasn’t playing today, but you see those two linking very successfully with Mbeumo and Cunha.
“You don’t quite see Sesko being part of that mix yet. He’s not got up to speed in the pace of it, of how quickly they’re playing with each other. He needs to get his game up to speed.
“That’ll only come through time and obviously he’s still quite young. But he just does need to get there because it’s a big signing still, he’s £80m. If they can become a front three, then obviously that’ll be huge.. At the moment it feels to me like a two with another guy stood up there occupying space.
“That’s the big job over the next couple of weeks.”
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