United lost 1-0 to a compilation of players from all over southeast Asia that had only played together once before
Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim has said his side may deserve to be booed after their serial poor performance. The club’s post-season tour of Asia took a humiliating turn on Monday as the Red Devils were handed a shock 1-0 defeat by the ASEAN All Stars in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
In what was United’s first visit to Malaysia since 2009, the crowd were subjected to a flat and uninspired performance from the Premier League side, who struggled throughout and failed to create any real attacking momentum against a team comprised of players from across Southeast Asia who had played together only once, 11 years ago. The result drew a chorus of boos from the 72,550 fans in attendance.
The only goal of the match came midway through the second half when Myanmar international Maung Maung Lwin latched onto a through-ball, timed his run to beat the offside trap, and calmly finished past veteran goalkeeper Tom Heaton.
Boos rang out at the final whistle, with one particularly vocal reaction coming after a misplaced pass from young midfielder Toby Collyer during United’s late push for an equaliser.
Speaking after the game, Amorim accepted full responsibility for the result, saying:
“I feel always guilty of the performance of the team since I am here in the first game. I am guilty. Then the boos from the fans, maybe it is something we need because every game that we lost in the Premier League, they were always there.
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“I felt when we finished every time the supporters were with us. Let’s see for next season. We should perform better. We were slow, we don’t have it in us to win every exercise in training and every game.
“The important thing is we had no injuries. With some players, it was a risk, but we wanted to show respect to the fans. We should win with these kind of games.”
