Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville dropped a clear-cut assessment of what he saw from Manchester United players during the Premier League match against Brentford.
Brentford hosted Manchester United on Saturday afternoon and the Bees secured all three Premier League points vs the Red Devils at the Gtech Community Stadium.
United struggled in the first half against Brentford’s aggression and attacking display, with the Bees going 2-0 up in the first 20 minutes of Saturday’s clash.
Following Igor Thiago’s brace at the Gtech Community Stadium, summer signing Benjamin Sesko opened his goalscoring account for United in the first half.
Brentford were able to maintain their lead in the second half and Mathias Jensen beat Altay Bayindir with a long-range effort in injury time to put his side 3-1 up.
What Gary Neville noticed from Man Utd players vs Brentford in the Premier League defeat at the Gtech Community Stadium
Ruben Amorim watched on from the touchline at the Gtech Community Stadium as Manchester United wasted their chance to pull themselves level against Brentford.
Bryan Mbeumo was brought down in a challenge and United received a penalty, but Bruno Fernandes stepped up and the skipper failed to convert for his side.
Speaking on Sky Sports, Gary Neville could not hide his concerns for the Red Devils after United’s third Premier League defeat of the season under Ruben Amorim.
The 50-year-old United legend said that the Red Devils players’ “body language in their faces” spoke volumes about them not connecting with Amorim’s tactics.
“So, I am very, very concerned. I really am,” he said on The Gary Neville Podcast.
“Because the manager’s obviously a good coach. He’s had a great record in Portugal, but it’s not clicking at all. It’s not clicking.
“And the thing is for me, when I just said before — maybe I didn’t finish what I was going to say — but it looked to me like players and the idea are not connecting at all.
“You could just see from the body language in their faces. And yeah, a problem. It’s a big problem.”
Ruben Amorim’s tactical system at Man Utd once again dominates the narrative after the 3-1 Brentford defeat
Amorim has remained firm on his United tactical system and the 40-year-old Portuguese coach has refused to pivot from his tactics at Old Trafford so far.
Speaking after United’s latest match, the former Sporting CP manager insisted that his system was not the reason why the Red Devils lost to Brentford on Saturday.
“It is always the same: when we win, it’s not the system, when you lose, it’s the system,” he said, as per Manchester United’s official website.
“I think it’s more that we play[ed] this game like Brentford wants to play this game. With long balls, we kick the balls, second balls, and we never settle down in our game.”
United manager Amorim added: “We never play our game. We never pushed the opponent; every time they recovered the ball.
“We suffered two goals like that. I think the penalty could change things, but my overall view of the game is that we never settled down, we didn’t have control of the game.”
United languish in 14th place in the Premier League table and the Red Devils have only managed two league wins in the 2025-26 season under Amorim so far.
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