Everton 2-2 Manchester United (Beto 19′, Doucoure 33′ | Fernandes 72′, Ugarte 80′)
GOODISON PARK — The impossible dream boomed out from the Old Trafford speakers as Sir Alex Ferguson bid a heart-wrenching farewell to his adoring crowd.
As an emotional Ferguson took the microphone to address his acolytes one last time 12 years ago, he urged Manchester United supporters to back the next manager, and the Premier League titles, having just won his 13th top-flight crown, would continue to find homes in a full-to-bursting trophy cabinet.
Ferguson, however, knew full well, he was in fact giving his successor, David Moyes, the Impossible Job.
Unlike Moyes, Ruben Amorim didn’t want the job. Not now, not mid-season. But when United come calling, as Moyes can attest to, you cannot say no. Both may, however, wish they had done.
“We did not exist in the first half,” is the latest in the long list of burns administered by Amorim this season.
Given ample opportunity to praise his side for coming from behind to snatch a 2-2 draw at a rejuvenated Everton on Saturday, Amorim continued to highlight the omnishambles that came before, the kind of limp and disinterested showing that has become his very own Impossible Job to turnaround.
Moyes’ insistence 12 years ago that United needed to improve in areas such as passing, creating chances and defending was, understandably, widely mocked. Now it is prophetic.
Amorim has done little to convince anyone that his innovative system will start to bring about any lasting, positive change, but sometimes a manager is powerless when elite-level footballers cannot clear a ball into the box after four attempts.
Beto could not believe his luck as he was able to scuff home a scruffy finish to continue his remarkable goalscoring run of five in his last four, having appeared set for the Goodison scrapheap, in the first-half sunshine.
The defending for Everton’s second was equally as slapstick. Yet despite the comedic nature of the play at one end, the irrelevance down the other end was somehow worse.
Amorim must be starting to feel the effects of whiplash such is the regularity he is left shaking his head at this United attacking unit.
After going into the interval without a shot on target, United have now gone 11 matches without scoring an open-play goal in the first half of a Premier League encounter.
Rasmus Hojlund is without a goal since early December. Joshua Zirkzee has gone even longer without a league strike. This is £110m worth of strikers unable to muster a shot on target against Premier League strugglers.
Alejandro Garnacho’s introduction from the bench changed things, as much as Hojlund’s withdrawal did. With young Chido Obi at least doing some running, United offered a threat – something normally taken for granted. Not by Amorim.
“I see what players saw and they know and what people see,” Amorim said of the first half display. “We lost a lot of balls without any pressure.
“That’s why you get disappointed. We did a lot of work in the week. We didn’t play first half. But it’s a good thing that in the second half they play in the same position with more energy, more quality and that makes the difference.”
Bruno Fernandes continues to do the heavy lifting, but his weary shoulders can only take so much. His free-kick dragged United back into the contest, before an equally precise finish from Manuel Ugarte completed the turnaround.
United needed a controversial late VAR review to spare them more woe, with referee Andrew Madley’s decision to penalise Harry Maguire for a foul on Ashley Young overturned.
It would have been typical United, to shoot themselves in the foot after working hard to earn a point.
A reprieve of that magnitude can have rejuvenating qualities. But that first-half performance is going to take an almighty inquest to rectify.
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