Two Manchester United players slammed for ‘disappointing’ mistakes vs Bournemouth

Manchester United fell to a disappointing home defeat in the Premier League against Bournemouth on Sunday afternoon.

The Reds lost 3-0 on the day and were once again undone by a set-piece for the opener, a recurring issue that Ruben Amorim and his coaching staff must urgently address.

While United showed promise in their overall play, they lacked sharpness in attack. Then, a rash challenge by Noussair Mazraoui early in the second half handed Bournemouth a penalty, which they converted to double their advantage.

As has become a worrying trend, United lost their composure after conceding the spot-kick, with a third goal following just two minutes after the penalty.

Despite their own promising moments in possession, United cannot afford to make such defensive mistakes and not get punished.

Two United player slammed for Bournemouth mistakes

Former United player Phil Bardsley was far from impressed with the ‘individual errors’ made for the first two goals conceded on the weekend.

The ex-Premier League defender criticised Noussair Mazraoui for diving in inside the area, and highlighted the fact that Joshua Zirkzee was unable to put any pressure on Dean Huijsen for the opener from the set-piece.

“Individual errors unfortunately,” Bardsley said on MUTV when asked how United could lose the game despite dominating the statistics.

“The first one was a free header, no contact in the box again and you go in at half-time 1-0 down.

“Second half again, a little bit like Thursday night. We give another goal away, a penalty… Mazraoui going to ground, he dived in a little bit.

“The third goal was a good little bit of play from Bournemouth to be fair, but all round disappointing, we were expecting a performance after winning the derby.”

United will continue to get punished

Ultimately, it’s going to be extremely difficult for such mistakes from these players to suddenly disappear in the coming weeks and months.

Football managers are not magicians, and they will usually either need time on the training pitch or new signings to improve these things. Amorim will likely have neither as United are in the midst of a very busy period of the season.

The fixtures are not easy either, with difficult games against Wolves, Newcastle, Liverpool and Arsenal on the horizon.

Read More: Ruben Amorim’s most important Man Utd defender is now obvious, Wes Brown says he’s ‘elite’

Perhaps the team can find some confidence from the performances they have been putting out, but it feels inevitable that these mistakes continue to creep in with this current squad.

Amorim does not have the time on the training pitch to fix all of these issues, and is trying to find a balance between moving in the right direction in terms of performances and results, which was always going to be difficult.

Make sure to follow UtdDistrict on X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok to never miss out on any of our Manchester United content. Our podcast, What the Devil?, is released every Wednesday at 6 pm (BST) on the United View YouTube channel.