Manchester United's struggles continue as Brighton defeat piles pressure on Ruben Amorim

Manchester United suffered a 3-1 home defeat to Brighton, prompting Ruben Amorim to take the criticism for a team whose problems run much deeper.Elsewhere, Antonio Conte's Napoli took another step towards a Serie A title, while Tottenham's crisis deepened around Ange Postecoglou.

Ruben Amorim holds himself accountable... but did anyone ask him to?

Sunday's 3-1 home defeat to Brighton was pretty brutal for Manchester United. Take away Bruno Fernandes' penalty and the xG was 0.69 (to Brighton's 1.93) with zero shots on target.

But guess what? So was their previous outing, Thursday night's 3-1 win over Southampton, a game they were losing until Amad Diallo's hat-trick beginning in the 37th minute of the second half. If you grade on a curve -- based on the fact that Brighton are battling for Europe, while Southampton are on pace to have the fewest points of any team in Premier League history -- that one was just as bad.

I get that, but I'm not sure it was necessary for Amorim to go all doom-and-gloom after the Brighton match, saying his was "maybe the worst team in the history of the club," that they "need to survive" and that he's "not helping [his] players in the moment."

It's not because they are nowhere near the worst team in United history -- that would be the 1933-34 team, who avoided relegation to the third flight on the last day of the season. Rather, it's because nobody is calling for his head right now, nobody is accusing him of scapegoating others, and nobody think he's deluded. United fans -- and neutrals who frankly miss them as a serious club -- simply want him to keep working and see if he can turn the club around.

Lack of accountability is a thing, sure, but not with Amorim. However, too much accountability isn't a great thing.

Most observers understand that Amorim had three things to do when he took over: assess the players and figure out who may need to be replaced, teach them his brand of football (and they obviously have a ways to go in that department), and move the club up the table so they can get the revenue they'll need to strengthen in the summer (he's not getting it done in this department).

But nobody is calling for his head. Nobody is blaming him -- not yet, anyway, and given how long the club put up with Erik Ten Hag and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (and given how expensive it is to fire someone) that won't happen for a while. All he has to do is say, "Yes, we all need to do a better job, but we'll get there."

What seems evident is that, individual errors aside, United have started to metabolize some of his defensive mechanisms, though their use of the ball and patterns of play in possession leave a lot to be desired. That's why, incidentally, they've looked better against better sides like Liverpool or Arsenal, especially on the road, than they have at home, where they've had to try to take the initiative. We can debate whether he has the players to do that, but that's what he needs to deliver if United are to progress. And that will take time.

There may also come a point -- maybe very soon, if they lose at Fulham on Sunday -- when they'll be tempted to "tank" the league and focus on the Europa League and FA Cup. The fact of the matter is there are 12 points (and eight clubs) between them and the Champions League places -- 11 points (and six clubs) to the Europa League spots. That is a lot of ground to make up with 16 games to go.

Might they be better off concentrating their energy on the cup competitions and using the Premier League as a chance to learn and grow in Amorim's system? It's going to be a big call to make, and Amorim hopes it won't come to that.

Antonio Conte is on his way to doing it again after Napoli's huge win at Atalanta

We may end up remembering this as a season-defining victory, not just because Atalanta were third in the table, but also because the last time they played they whupped Napoli 3-0 away. On Saturday night, Napoli took what Atalanta (who played very well going forward) threw at them, weathered the storm, punished opposition mistakes and won 3-2 thanks to a late Romelu Lukaku header at the end of a riveting 90-plus minutes.

Atalanta boss Gian Piero Gasperini said losing like this "hurts," and presumably he was referring to the fact that you can pinpoint a defensive error on each of Napoli's three goals. He's right, but there's a lot to be said for Napoli's ability to both neuter their attack -- they were outshot 15 to 6 and still won the xG battle -- and be ruthless in exploiting their chances.

Games like this feed the Conte narrative about hard work and intensity, and they further cement his grip on this Napoli team. We scoff at this at our peril, but there is no question that he's one of the best in the world at getting immediate buy-in from his players. He said so himself after the game, when asked about whether he expected the club to sign a replacement for PSG-bound Khvicha Kvaratskhelia: "If they ask my opinion I'll give it. But if somebody comes, it needs to be someone who can contribute right away, not just some promising youngster. Otherwise, I'll stick to the guys I have, because I trust them and I know they'll go to war with me and won't let me down."

The fact is Napoli have no cup football and only need to play another 17 games between now and the end of the season. He doesn't need more bodies: the ones he has will run through a brick wall for him.

Lest we forget, of the Napoli XI that won the title two years ago, four key pieces -- Victor Osimhen, Kvaratskhelia, Piotr Zielinski and Min-Jae Kim -- are now gone. Their replacements are Lukaku, David Neres, Scott McTominay and Alessandro Buongiorno. Except for the latter, the other three, on paper, are evident downgrades and yet, once again, he has shown the ability to make players better... at least in the short-term.

Injuries ravage Tottenham, and Ange Postecoglou's 'fixes' make things worse

And yet, you can only blame him to a point. When you have 11 unavailable first-team players, you can either plug in some youth teamers or you can devise a new scheme to accommodate the ones you do have. Postecoglou chose the latter, shifting to a back three and playing Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison as wide men. It's a setup we hadn't seen before from Spurs and, by Postecoglou's own admission, it "probably made things worse" as they went into halftime 3-0 down at Everton.

We can second-guess all we like and try to reconfigure the Spurs puzzle with the ill-fitting pieces available, but there was no obvious "better solution" -- just a lot of Monday Morning Quarterbacking. And possibly because Everton had not actually won a game since Dec. 4 and had just sacked their manager, Postecoglou thought he could get away with it.

The fightback in the second half to 3-2 suggests that Spurs aren't lacking spirit; they're mostly lacking players. That's the good news. The question is when the injured players return, what the table will look like when they do and at what point folks lose faith in Postecoglou. Because the fact of the matter is that this already stretched squad has Europa League, FA Cup and League Cup commitments too. And while eight points from the relegation zone feels like a lot, it can go away pretty quickly once you start to slide.