Man Utd: Ruben Amorim has pile of problems to address from work-rate and creativity to selection options

The sight of Amad diving down the right flank to score the opening goal for Marcus Rashford after just 81 seconds seemed fitting given the feel-good factor generated by the arrival of Ruben Amorim. What followed showed why change is still desperately needed.

Manchester United came away with a 1-1 draw away to Ipswich Town and could hardly say the result was harsh. Over the next 92 minutes they failed to create an equally good chance, relying on Andre Onana to keep the home side to a single goal.

Liam Delap came close twice, both times spectacularly denied by the Cameroonian goalkeeper. There are only three previous examples this decade of a player having such a high expected goals tally against Manchester United and failing to find the net.

Onana earns a point for Amorim

Considering United are in the bottom half of the Premier League, you might expect Onana to have had a disappointing season, but the opposite is true. Amorim would inherit an even worse situation if the goalkeeper had not regularly saved his team.

In fact, the statistics show that Onana has saved between four and five more goals than would have been expected this season, given the location of the shots and where on the goal they were hit. No Premier League goalkeeper can match that.

Amorim was more animated when Onana somehow denied Delap's first big chance with a gaping goal than when United scored. But he will not want to be so dependent on his goalkeeper in the future. His remarkable reactions saved United on Sunday.Adam Bate

Man Utd are running into a familiar problem

Early in Erik ten Hag's reign, he called the Man Utd players for training on a scheduled day off and ran 14km with them. It was an exercise to underline the extra ground Brentford had covered in that cleansing 4-0 defeat and to show the United players that work rate and intensity needed to be added to their ball skills.

It was a ploy that paid off in the short term, with United beating Liverpool 2-1 the next time out.

Amorim may not be taking the same approach this week – he has already highlighted the need to rotate his players in the coming games – but nevertheless, this United team's running stats remain disappointing. In fact, they are alarming.

Against Ipswich they covered 6.5 km less than their opponents and made 138 sprints to their hosts' 150. This season, only Fulham and Chelsea have been overtaken by United in terms of distance covered. United have lost on that metric and the sprint count in every other instance in the Premier League this season.

“We have to be so much better physically to deal with the high pressure, the volume of high-speed running and all these things, but we need time to work on these things,” Amorim said. It's a message United must convey if they want to reach the level the Portuguese are aiming for.Peter Smith

Difficulty moving the ball forward

United attempted 649 passes against Ipswich, more than in any other Premier League match this season. But the vast majority – 449 – were in their own half. In seven of the previous eleven games they even made more passes into the opponent's half.

In fact, United attempted 69.2 percent of their passes inside their own half at Portman Road, which is the highest percentage in any Premier League match since Opta began recording such information over two decades ago. It's an astonishing statistic.

It reveals two things. The first is that there has clearly been an effort to build the game from the back end much more than before. The second is that they largely failed to do so, as moves often broke down in their own half and failed to progress the ball further up the pitch. Adam Bate

Creativity and progressiveness are missing

“Same players and same problems,” says Sky Sports pundit Roy Keane. Chief among these issues, he added, was a “lack of goals and a lack of quality” in the attacking third.

Manchester United's performance at Portman Road was just the latest in which they have shown poor levels of creativity and goal threat. Their total of thirteen goals from twelve games puts them fourteenth this season, level with Ipswich and lower than Leicester.

Of course, things started promisingly against Ipswich, but Manchester United finished the match with just 0.80 expected goals. Damn it wasn't even their lowest total of the season.

On the occasions they created chances they were often let down by poor finishing. Manchester United's thirteen goals came from 165 shots. It's an average shot total, the ninth highest in the division, and equates to a conversion rate of 7.9 percent.

Only three teams, Crystal Palace, Everton and Southampton, have converted shots at a slower rate this season. Struggling to create and unable to finish, Manchester United's plight leaves Amorim with his work to solve the problems.Nick Wright

Players play out of position

The overarching reason why Amorim needs time to address these issues is because this squad is clearly not suited to his system. Amad made an encouraging start in his role as full-back on the right, but was tested defensively. It's not his natural position.

Many others could argue the same. Diogo Dalot played as a left wing-back. Noussair Mazraoui went in and was part of a back three. Rashford started up front, a role he was reluctant to take on. Bruno Fernandes played as inside right.

This is not a side built with its 3-4-2-1 formation in mind. Given the scale of expenditure in the summer, this raises questions about future planning at the club. Amorim would undoubtedly like to spend some of that money in January.

Instead, it will certainly take longer to correct course. The challenge is to build a team that can play with the intensity he demands and within the system that has brought him success. United's struggle against Ipswich was a reminder of the magnitude of the task. Adam Bate