MU fan ‘heartbroken’ as haircut hopes fade following Nottingham Forest draw

It’s back to the drawing board for Manchester United fan Frank Ilett whose hopes of a much needed haircut went up in smoke following Saturday’s 2-2 draw against Nottingham Forest.

The United Srand’s infamous locks haven’t been trimmed for 392 days with Ilet refusing to visit the barbers until his beloved Red Devils win five games in a row.

A run of three consecutive victories had seen optimism rise to almost unprecedented levels but a share of the spoils at the City Ground on Saturday means the challenge resets.

Ilett took to TikTok in the immediate aftermath of the game and although he confessed he was ‘heartbroken’ by the result he maintains there are enough encouraging signs to suggest his long wait for a haircut will be over before Christmas.

He said: ‘I so thought we had that. Even right at the end, Amad’s shot cleared off the line. I genuinely felt sick. I’m not going to lie I do feel completely heartbroken.

‘But of course I have already been looking at the next possible haircut date. To be honest I do feel quite optimistic. The next time it could happen is December 8 after the Wolves game which will be day 429.

‘If you look at our next 11 fixtures, we’re playing Spurs, Everton, Palace, West Ham, Wolves, Bournemouth, Aston Villa, Newcastle, Wolves again Leeds and then Burnley.

‘Surely in that period of games we can get a run of five wins in a row.

‘I’d personally say every single one of those games are winnable so I don’t think the haircut moment will be delayed too much.

‘In terms of the performance we did seem to switch off at parts of the game but I do think there are positives to take. Some of the link up play was as slick as I can remember it for quite some time.

‘There’s definite progress to be seen but of course these things take time. I’m bitterly disappointed at the result today and be back at zero for the challenge.

‘Before the game it felt like it was going to be an easy win but we keep going and I know those wins will come soon.’

Ruben Amorim, meanwhile, believes United’s late leveller shows there has been a mentality shift from the side that last season would have lost in the same circumstances.

Saturday marked the one-year anniversary of the Portuguese’s appointment and Casemiro’s header from a controversially awarded corner put them on course for a fourth straight win.

But United were caught napping at the start of the second half, with Morgan Gibbs-White and Nicolo Savona scoring in quick succession to leave the visitors facing another Premier League defeat against Forest.

That drop off in display was all too familiar last term, but the visitors dug deep and Amad Diallo’s fantastic late volley made it 2-2, with Murillo’s goal-line clearance then denying him a stoppage-time winner. We lost control of the game for five minutes and we paid the price,’ United boss Amorim said. ‘I think we did some things well.

‘I think also that our level of energy dropped a little bit and when our team drops a little bit the energy you can feel it. We can play well, but it is not in full power.

‘But my feeling is that the players tried, really tried. They tried during the week and they tried today.

‘In the past, if we had this kind of bad five minutes and we suffered two goals, we didn’t recover. Today is a different feeling.

‘You can sense that we could not win this game, but we are not going to lose and that is a feeling that a big team sometimes has to have.

‘We have a big opportunity to win in the end, but my feeling is we dropped two points here and we should have done better.’