This is why Rúben Amorim's dream Manchester United debut went down the drain

82 seconds into Rúben Amorim’s first match as Manchester United manager, and everything was right with the world – in fact, it was “utopian” as Peter Drury put it, drizzling a layer of bombast over the description of a six-yard side-footed finish that no other commentator would dream of.

It really was the perfect start though, even if Drury’s hyperbole may have oversold it all just a little. Marcus Rashford was miraculously resurrected a little more than a minute into the new manager’s reign. The decision to play Amad Diallo as a right wing-back immediately looked like the stroke of a strategic genius. Fans of any club, under any circumstances, would get a little over-excited after a start like that. What could possibly go wrong?

As it turns out, the answer was a fair amount, and while he may yet prove to be a genius, Amorim has not been able to prevent Manchester United from playing like Manchester United after just one week of training. There were improvements in many areas and injuries which provide excuses in others, but for all the good and the bad, one issue stood out in particular – the static way in which United defended in central areas around their own box, and the vulnerability they displayed to even quite basic off-ball movement in the final third.

There was a warning sign a little over ten minutes in, when Sammie Szmodics arrived from deep unannounced and unnoticed only to miscue his shot and allow André Onana to make a relatively comfortable save. There was a real jump scare half an hour later, when Liam Delap was able to saunter into the six-yard box unchallenged and force a brilliant close-quarters stop from Onana.

Then there was the goal. Omari Hutchinson’s strike took a slightly fortunate deflection, granted, but the ease with which a simple shift onto his left foot turned into more than enough space for a shot was deeply worrying. Casemiro didn’t just fail to get in the way or at least hurry the strike, he seemed unwilling and unable to do so.

It kept happening, both inside the box and directly in front of it – even the slightest hint of a late run from an Ipswich Town striker would slice through the United defence with ease. Delap did it again, getting in front of Nouassir Mazraoui at the near post to miss from point-blank range while the Morocco international stood stock still. Conor Chaplin could have won it late on after his late run into the area was ignored entirely.

Whether you blame the individual players or the shiny new system is down to personal preference, although when players are adapting to new methods the line between the two rather blurs anyway.

Certainly there were some individual failings – Casemiro managed just one successful tackle all match and seldom marshalled his area with any real authority, for instance, while Mazraoui was asleep for the second Delap chance and Jonny Evans seemed oddly indecisive and got caught coming and going on a couple of occasions. But there were also signs that Amorim has a lot of work to do in order to get his zonal system up and running.

The first of Delap’s two glorious chances provided a neat example. Amorim’s defensive system is designed to have the three centre-backs relatively narrow when defending the area, while the two holding midfielders drop back to cover the space in front of them. Instead, neither Casemiro nor Eriksen got back to squeeze the gap between defence and midfield and stayed put, presumably hoping to sweep up any second balls that came their way – but simultaneously, all three centre-backs held their zone, allowing Delap to waltz in between the two lines completely unopposed.

The chances are that each player was obeying the basic instruction offered to them about when to hold position and when to press (Evans instinctively started heading out of his area to intercept Delap but hesitated and stayed put), but this was a situation in which a bit of independent thinking was required. As time goes by, the players will no doubt get rather more comfortable with their roles and will learn when they can (and must) break ranks.

Inevitable teething troubles, in other words, exacerbated by a lack of individual quality in key moments from what remains a poorly-assembled squad. It may well be that we see rather better performances in exactly the same situations when players like Lisandro Martínez, Lenny Yoro and Harry Maguire are the players having questions asked of them, and the midfield may be rather more combative when Kobbie Mainoo and Manuel Ugarte are starting instead – but it will take time for the players to collectively understand not just their job in a new system, but the job of the players around them. Not that Amorim will want it to take long given how soft the belly of the team seemed to be, and how easily Ipswich tickled it on several occasions.

After all, there were issues in the final third, too, and Ipswich didn’t generate twice as many expected goals as the visitors solely due to United’s defensive errors. How often did United get the ball down the channels and into the final third only for the next pass to be a little bit behind the target, or for the overlapping run to arrive a fraction too late? There is much to learn – and much room for individual improvement – at both ends of the pitch.

None of which really tells us all that much, unless it’s to remind us that it would be optimistic to expect Amorim to turn lead into gold inside a week, or indeed 82 seconds. Rashford is still below his staggering best. Diallo is a left-footed winger who needs to learn his new position. And United still have a lot of sub-par players, few of which have developed a close understanding with their team-mates. That doesn’t make that “utopian” moment in Suffolk a false dawn – at least, not necessarily.