Manchester United took another step backward as Old Trafford continued to be a theatre of nightmares for them this season.
Crystal Palace rocked up at Old Trafford and walked away with a 2-0 win in a game that didn’t cover many players in the Man Utd squad in glory.
Ruben Amorim has a clear idea of what his best team is like so when that XI drops a stinker, it looks even worse but there’s clearly a long road ahead.
Rio Ferdinand is backing one player who hasn’t had the best of times of late to be a crucial part of that long road because ‘he’s made of the right stuff’.
Rio Ferdinand back Leny Yoro to turn it around
Leny Yoro has been drip-fed into the team by Ruben Amorim after injury made it so that he never appeared for the manager who signed him.
Yoro has shown flashes of potential that had Real Madrid and Man Utd going hammer and tongs for him in the summer but it has been mixed with errors that show his young age.
He struggled again against Crystal Palace, with teams now realising that pacy and physical forwards can get him in trouble at times because of his eagerness to win the ball back.
Rio Ferdinand spoke on his YouTube channel after the game and backed Yoro to turn it around and eventually succeed because he’s got all the right intangibles.
He said: “I just think he’s gotta learn and do it the hard way in the spotlight. That’s the thing when you come to a big club like Man Utd, there’s no hiding place where there’s time for you to make your mistakes.
“Leny Yoro has to do in the spotlight, under the pressure and he needs to have thick skin but I think he’s made of the right stuff. He needs a good support system around him too.”
Leny Yoro’s growing problems much better than buying a spent force
Nobody sane would be writing off Yoro after a couple of underwhelming performances because he’s been thrust into a thankless situation.
The system and the manager that brought him to Old Trafford changed before he even made an appearance and the team around him is hardly a support system at all, let alone a good one.
Still, Man Utd would much rather have Yoro’s growing problems en route to becoming a better player than buying someone who played the best football of his career elsewhere and is a spent force.
Ineos’ philosophy of buying young players will have bumps in the road but ultimately, the team will be better off in the long run.
Yoro can hopefully be the poster boy of that philosophy’s success in a few years, as Rio Ferdinand predicts he will be.
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