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Matthijs de Ligt urged his Manchester United teammates to cut out mistakes and take responsibility when he spoke after the disappointing Brentford defeat in September. United suffered a big setback at the Gtech Community Stadium. Ruben Amorim's future subsequently dominated headlines, but Amorim has enjoyed an October to remember. Amorim must be in contention to win manager of the month after impressive wins against Sunderland, Liverpool and Brighton, which have seen United climb up to sixth in the table. So what has been the difference? Amorim has made a few tweaks. Senne Lammens made his debut against Sunderland before the international break and the goalkeeper punted most of his goal kicks long. Benjamin Sesko was found regularly by Lammens and speaking after the victory, Mason Mount said about the goalkeeper's impressive impact: "It was a solid performance. Any danger of them pressing, he puts it into Ben [Sesko] and we work off that. I think he kind of released the pressure a lot." Amorim hinted that supporters could see the same against Liverpool. "I think if you look at nowadays, every time the ball goes to the goalkeeper, most of the teams play man-to-man," he said. "Sometimes you don't have anyone to play and you try to use the first ball with the second ball and try to win. When you have players with a lot of power in front and now we have it. If we win one second ball, we can take all that build-up from the game and have the opportunity to score. "I think everyone is doing that. Senne has one ability that is really good. He can play with both feet. It's harder for the opponents to try to make the pressure from one side or the other. "They know that he can kick the ball with both feet and I think that is really important. But he also needs to be ready. People are seeing the games. Understanding that it takes a little bit of time to choose. "He needs to be ready for the Premier League . It's something that you use if it's man-to-man in front. You are not building up. You can put the ball in one against one up front and that is the play." Arne Slot complained about United's effective approach, but Amorim refused to respond to the comments from the Liverpool manager. "Liverpool is in the past, I don’t want to comment," he said last Friday. "It is not important, it is important what Fabian [Hurzeler] said - to try to understand what is going to happen [against Brighton]. I understand everything, I am really pleased that the team can play different games. "It was an important win but I was the first one to say we need to play better with the ball. I don’t care what Slot is saying, what people are saying about our team. "I can watch the game and say we can do better and we need to do better in the future but sometimes you need to adapt to the game. So I don’t need anyone to evaluate my team. I can evaluate my team and I am really clear that we should play better with the ball and we are going to try to do that in this game." United have gained confidence, helping the back-three to push up to squeeze the opponent more aggressively. "That was the plan [defenders pressing with aggression]," said Amorim after Brighton. "When we have Harry Maguire we can defend better our box so we can play a little lower. "But when you have players that can press high... Luke is not really tall, but he's fast and aggressive. We can press a little higher and we know if we win the ball we have players in front of the goal. They [United's attackers] are so good that we just need one chance when we win the ball." Amad has hit form after suffering from a family bereavement. The 23-year-old's understanding with Bryan Mbeumo has blossomed and the pair were crucial against Liverpool and Brighton. "He's a working machine," said Amorim about Mbeumo. "He's so good in transitions. He's improving when we are organising the final third. The connection with Amad is really hard to beat these two guys because they change positions. They are really fast, they are good in one against one." The pieces have fallen into place and United are now officially an in-form team.
