Ruben Amorim senses change in mentality after Man Utd rescue late draw

By Simon Peach, PA Chief Football Writer

Ruben Amorim believes Manchester United’s late leveller at Nottingham Forest shows there has been a mentality shift from the side that last season would have lost in the same circumstances.

Saturday marked the one-year anniversary of the Portuguese’s appointment and Casemiro’s header from a controversially awarded corner put them on course for a fourth straight win.

But United were caught napping at the start of the second half, with Morgan Gibbs-White and Nicolo Savona scoring in quick succession to leave the visitors facing another Premier League defeat at the City Ground.

That drop off in display was all too familiar last term, but the visitors dug deep and Amad Diallo’s fantastic late volley made it 2-2, with Murillo’s goal-line clearance then denying him a stoppage-time winner.

Some finish, @AmadDiallo_19 🙌 pic.twitter.com/copyrBXRWn

— Manchester United (@ManUtd) November 1, 2025

“We lost control of the game for five minutes and we paid the price,” United boss Amorim said. “I think we did some things well.

“I think also that our level of energy dropped a little bit and when our team drops a little bit the energy you can feel it. We can play well, but it is not in full power.

“But my feeling is that the players tried, really tried. They tried during the week and they tried today.

“In the past, if we had this kind of bad five minutes and we suffered two goals, we didn’t recover. Today is a different feeling.

“You can sense that we could not win this game, but we are not going to lose and that is a feeling that a big team sometimes has to have.

“We have a big opportunity to win in the end, but my feeling is we dropped two points here and we should have done better.”

Diallo’s delightful volley denied Forest a first Premier League win since the opening day, but boss Sean Dyche was “pleased and proud of the players’ performance”.

However, for the second week running the Reds manager was unhappy with some costly officiating, leading him to call for a change to the way VAR is used.

Forest conceded the opener from a wrongly awarded corner in last week’s 2-0 loss at Bournemouth and on Saturday they fell behind when Casemiro scored from a corner awarded despite Savona keeping the ball in play.

“Two weeks on the trot, which is bizarre in itself,” Dyche said. “Similar but different, obviously.

“The last one was a clear mistake (at Bournemouth), which I was booked for. How on earth I get booked for an actual mistake, proven, is bizarre.

“Then today I just can’t understand it. You’re an assistant referee, you’re 70-odd yards away, you’ve got a goal and a net in the way, but apparently you can see.

“I’ve got a better view and I’m not in the right position, so that’s got to be wrong in the current climate.

“The thing that annoys me the most, and I’m a big fan of VAR, is that someone’s got to have to overrule these decisions, just really quickly. That’ll be five seconds.

“You just go ‘that’s in play’ but they whack it in and score a goal two weeks on the trot.

“Now, of course you can say ‘well, you’ve got to deal with the corner’ but the point is it shouldn’t even be that, so that’s really difficult.”