For Ruben Amorim the stats initially appeared rather encouraging. Against Nottingham Forest his work-in-progress Manchester United team secured 69 per cent of possession, strung together 649 passes (more than double the number managed by their opponents) and had 23 shots.
There is just one stat, however, that matters: the number of goals scored. And, for the 11th time this Premier League season, United managed none at all. Consequently, thanks to a jet-heeled intervention by United alumnus Anthony Elanga, three points once more evaded their frustrated manager.
Nobody could accuse the boss of not trying. During the last quarter of Tuesday’s match, the underlying failure of his side to do the most critically important task in the game was demonstrated by stationing Harry Maguire as centre-forward in the hope he might get his oversized forehead on the ball. This was less total football, more desperately flinging it in the mixer. It did not work. Meanwhile, as Maguire failed to do the job others are meant to do, those on whom sizeable transfer fees were lavished in the hope they might occasionally contribute a goal continued to labour fruitlessly.
Though in truth Joshua Zirkzee and Rasmus Hojlund are not the first to discover that pulling on a Manchester United jersey works as reverse alchemy, somehow stripping a centre forward of the ability to put the ball in the net. The club that once boasted a squad that included Andrew Cole, Dwight Yorke, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Teddy Sheringham all competing to establish individual scoring records, has in the last ten years proven to be the place that denudes incoming strikers of all their potency.
Since Sir Alex Ferguson snaffled Robin Van Persie from Arsenal back in 2012, what awaits a newly signed striker is frustration and drought. With the all-too-brief exception of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, every single frontman brought into the club has found their relevance diminished. Antony Martial, Romelu Lukaku, Alexis Sanchez, Radamel Falcao, Odion Ighalo, Wout Weghorst: for them Old Trafford turned into a reputational graveyard. Even Edison Cavani and the returning superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, after bright starts, soon sank into the collective mire.
This is the issue Amorim faces as he attempts his monumental rebuild. He knows his problem: he has to find someone to score. And quick. But how is another matter. His former Sporting asset Victor Gyokeres has already indicated that were he to move from Lisbon it would be to a club likely to win things. And even if his previous relationship with the manager might prove a temptation for the player, he only has to scan the record book to see what happens to frontmen once they join the club for him to think Arsenal, Bayern or PSG might be a more fruitful destination.
For United fans the one chink of optimism comes in the shape of the youth team signing from Arsenal, Chibo Obi Martin. But Amorim must know that to get the best out of his 18-year-old prodigy, he has somehow got to clear away the Old Trafford striker’s quicksand before it claims another finisher’s purpose.
