Manchester United: ‘Everything is so hard’ – Ruben Amorim must find answers

Not that Amorim is apportioning blame.

“The responsibility is on me, not Carlos,” he said.

“We are a team in good moments and bad moments. We have a way of doing things. We are working on that and we are going to improve on that. But we didn’t lose because of set pieces. We lost because we create more chances and didn’t score.”

Speaking to Match of the Day, Martinez put it rather more bluntly.

“We are so angry with this kind of situation,” said the Argentina defender. “We have to work on set-pieces especially.

“I believe a lot in this team and staff. If they don’t score their first goal from a set-piece then it is a totally different game.”

Amorim is hampered by a lack of quality.

The Portuguese trusted Tyrell Malacia with the left wing-back role, but took the Dutchman off at half-time having watched him give the ball away too cheaply on too many occasions and not really offer anything going forward.

Diogo Dalot switched sides, but his one goal threat lacked conviction. Noussair Mazraoui moved to left wing-back from his position in a three-man defence, but was drawn into the rash tackle on Justin Kluivert which allowed the forward to double Bournemouth’s lead from the penalty spot.

Further forward, only skipper Bruno Fernandes was a danger to the Bournemouth goal, with Marcus Rashford omitted for the third successive game, although he was at Old Trafford to watch the sorry events unfold.

“It depends, we will see,” said Amorim when asked if the England forward might come into contention for the Boxing Day trip to Wolves.