Ruben Amorim's critical comment was aimed at his Manchester United players - and they took the bait

Diogo Dalot gave the game away at Anfield when he said Ruben Amorim's comment about Manchester United's squad being "starving for leaders" had struck a nerve. So it should have done. Amorim was telling a team of internationals that they lacked a quality they should all possess.

This wasn't a technical or tactical failing. It was in the head and the heart. Not everyone can have leadership skills, but in a squad with the kind of CVs that United's players possess, there should be at least a handful leading from the front. In Amorim's view, there wasn't, and he was right.

It was a barbed comment in a pre-match press conference that clearly stung. Managers and head coaches can sometimes use those media commitments to send a message, which Amorim did a week last Friday.

'Starving for leaders' was a wonderful line that was always going to make the back pages. It would also be unavoidable for his players, and by the time they arrived at Liverpool last week, they knew what their head coach thought of them.

They responded in the right way. A gutsy, gritty performance on Merseyside earned them an excellent point, and afterwards, the head coach and players all pointed to the change in attitude as being behind the improvement. At the Emirates, they backed it up, winning an FA Cup third-round tie full of drama on penalties, having played an hour with 10 men. They showed heart and spirit to win this tie.

There had been an expectation of another step forward under Amorim, and it came in different circumstances. There was the benefit of back-to-back free midweeks, and after improving on the training pitches a week ago, there was an expectation that United would step up again at the Emirates. This was especially true with nine of the 10