The early steps in learning any new skill are often accompanied by silly mistakes. Learning a new language involves getting your words mixed up, struggling to learn grammatical rules and butchering the accent. When you pick up an instrument there’s the patch where your fingers struggle to keep up with the musical flow.
If you want to take up stand-up comedy, you first have to accept you will spend a long time being very bad at stand-up comedy. To paraphrase a well-known cartoon sidekick , “Being bad at something is the first towards learning how to be good at something.” Advertisement Which brings us to Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United .
The Portuguese is attempting to get his players to unlearn a collection of bad playing habits while teaching them a set of new routines. Six games into his tenure, mistakes are commonplace. Players are prone to moments of indecision and overreaction.
Confidence wavers. But for the most part, this team are trying to push forward and take on something new. United were not particularly impressive in the first half of the 2-1 win over FC Viktoria Plzen on Thursday .
The pace at which Amorim’s side moves with the ball does not match the speed at which they lose it. There are sizeable periods of matches where opponents can defend in a compact shape, safe in the knowledge that United attacks can eventually fizzle out of their own accord. Plzen were no different, pressing well in phases, but rarely troubled by a United attack that passed th.
