Ruben Amorim says he always had a feeling his team would produce the second-half reaction which saw United become the first team to leave Crystal Palace with all three points since February.
Mason Mount’s well-worked free-kick finish took all the points home, and Amorim was delighted with his players’ heart after shaking off Monday’s frustrating home defeat to 10-man Everton.
United ended Palace's 12-match unbeaten Premier League home record and extended our undefeated run on the road to four matches.
Ruben met with the media inside Selhurst Park following the final whistle. Keep scrolling to read, and watch, everything he said in the post-match press conference, with his team’s second-half comeback a key topic…
“No, we just wanted everyone to understand the game. I felt in the last 10 minutes of the first half that the opponent was struggling, and that they would struggle in the second half. We had that feeling, and we needed to do something to change the way we were playing. We tried to change little things in the game - the intensity and the quality in the way we connect, especially Josh [Zirkzee] - he improved a lot the way we played.”
We saw Josh and Bryan [Mbeumo] play a little closer together in the second half. Was that something you felt you needed to change?
“I didn’t say ‘play nearer to Josh’ but I just said to the players, we need to be more alive. If you are more alive, you are in more places - you are near the ball more often. I think everyone did that. But we also need to understand that our opponent was getting tired in the second half. When you increase the rhythm and the opponent gets tired a little bit and suffers a goal right away, you feel that we have control of the game.”
“It was really important. But again, it was not just the goal, even the runs in-behind in the first half - he struggled on the duels, he won some in the second and we improved a lot because of his quality. It is important for him to understand that it is not just the goal - we played better because he played well in the second half.”
You spoke about the importance of the left wing-backs on Friday. That was an impressive performance from Diogo Dalot. How proud were you of the display, and has that got to be the benchmark?
“Of course. Defending and attacking, if you have certain characteristics, the base, you can go right or left because you also can play well with your left. You need to use that in every single game in the Premier League, not just one game and then we drop a little bit the level. But it's the same thing that I said with Patrick [Chinazaekpere Dorgu]. I know they have a lot of quality. They just need to be relaxed sometimes, show that and show the intensity and the pace that they have.”
Did you believe at half-time that your side could turn things around, given some of the setbacks this squad has had?
“I felt that because, again, I had the feeling - if you see the last plays of the [first] half they were struggling so much to take the ball out of the box and you can feel it in the way they move that they were getting tired. We talk about that, our pace and intensity. We cannot play like that in the Premier League. So we increased that. I had a feeling, we had the feeling, that if we scored one goal, this is going to change completely. I also really liked the way we controlled the game, with the ball, winning the game. We were in front, but we were not afraid of trying to score the next one and to control the ball in their half.”
How do you explain that lack of intensity in the first half?
“Sometimes, it's a lot of things.The pace of the ball can be better. We need to understand that. All these small details, I think we improved. And when you have one or two plays, the rhythm flows better and you increase everything mentally and physically.”
We’ve seen more set-piece goals, it is something that we have actually seen quite a lot of in the past few weeks, are you putting more focus on that recently?
“We have more time to work. We work a lot and we are learning a lot. In England, I think you are used to seeing that. When you are in the Premier League, you learn a lot from the other teams, and how to do it. We are stealing a lot of things to score!”