Rúben Amorim said Manchester United will have to “suffer for a long period” before his methods will help the club enjoy success again after a 1-1 draw at Ipswich Town denied the new head coach a debut win in his first game in charge.

Marcus Rashford’s opening goal after 81 seconds had given United a dream start at Portman Road, but Omari Hutchinson’s equalizer sealed a point for Kieran McKenna’s team and the home side would have won had United goalkeeper André Onana not made two crucial saves .

Despite having less than a week to work with his new squad on the training pitch, the former Sporting CP coach deployed his favored 3-4-2-1 formation and said it led to his players started to rethink performance.

But Amorim insisted he would remain true to his principles, even as he said it will lead to more suffering until his tactics bear fruit.

“I know it’s frustrating for the fans, but we’re changing so much at the moment with a lot of games,” Amorim told reporters. “We will suffer for a long time and we will try to win games, but this will take time.

“We have to win games, but we could lose if it wasn’t for Onana, so I think we have to understand that and be pragmatic that these guys had two days of training to change so much.

“It’s hard for the players to deal with everything in three days, but we forget the new idea. I think that’s why I was brought here in the middle of the season and we’re trying to deal with the things they are used to doing (under Erik ten Hag).

“Next year at the same stage we will be here with the same problems or we start now, we risk a little, we suffer a little and next year we will be better at this point, so we have to risk it a little bit.

“The players think too much, because we are now changing too much with two training sessions, without room to improve in training.

“But what I understood today is that they are trying. They are really trying. Even in the difficult moments, I felt like they were doing the things we wanted them to do.”

Amorim said he has already told his players to stop what they were doing under the previous regime, citing the changes he has urged on full-back Diogo Dalot.

“A few details: they passed the ball and went forward, even the central defenders,” Amorim said. “Now they have to go back. These kinds of things. They go forward and have to think too much.

“Dalot used to do it: pass the ball to the central defenders, go inside and play as a midfielder, now he has to stick to this position.

“If we want to listen to many of you that Manchester United have no structure, we will have a situation where you can see a structure and you will see that, but it is not fluid.

“This is like steps. We have to put the heads in, the structure. If they start thinking about the structure, they will play so much better.”

“But we need time for that and in this time we have to manage to win games. That is very important and I know that.”

United have matches in the Premier League, Europa League and Carabao Cup scheduled in the coming weeks and Amorim said some players will be withdrawn from certain matches to allow them to work on new methods on the training ground.

“We have to find a way,” he said. “I think the only way to do this is that we have matches and the boys who are not playing get training. Everyone is going to play, everyone is going to sit on the bench, so they have the feeling of the match, but they have to train .

“With this schedule we have to rotate the team, so we will try to use that to train, improve the team and win games.

“Without the time we have to find the time, I think that’s the only way some guys are going to play. Some guys will work on our idea the next day and then they’ll change positions.”