NOTTINGHAM, England — Things can change very quickly when you’re in charge of Manchester United.

In the space of three weeks, Ruben Amorim went from candidate for the sack to manager of the month nominee. At one point at the City Ground on Saturday, with United leading Nottingham Forest 1-0, Amorim’s team sat second on the Premier League table and Arsenal‘s closest challengers.

That was before the script flipped again and Forest scored twice in the space of 92 seconds in the second half. It took a stunning late equaliser from Amad Diallo to rescue a 2-2 draw as Amorim learned again about the ups and downs of life as United boss.

Afterwards, the Portuguese coach bemoaned the loss of two valuable points, but also chose to see the positives.

“I think we did some things well,” said Amorim. “I think also that our level of energy, we dropped a little bit. And when our team drops a little bit, the energy, you can feel it. We can play well, but it’s 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.”

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Despite three wins in a row lifting United into the European places, Amorim walked into his weekly news conference at Carrington on Thursday armed with a warning. The last three weeks have been good, he said, but his team are at a stage in their development where things can switch in a flash. All of that was on show against Forest.

In the first half, United played with the confidence of a team which has just seen off Sunderland, Liverpool and Brighton. They deserved to be ahead at halftime, although the goal came about in controversial circumstances.

Spurs manager Sean Dyche was furious that referee Darren England decided that Nicolò Savona did not keep the ball in play and awarded United a corner. And when Bruno Fernandes swung the ball in for Casemiro to head past Matz Sels, his mood darkened even further as he bounced around his technical area screaming at fourth official Robert Madley.

“It’s not inconclusive, I’ve seen it back,” raged Dyche, who earned his first Premier League point as Forest boss. “They give corners that aren’t corners. It’s a really poor decision. That decides a lot. We are fighting for our lives to get up the table.”

Next, it was Amorim’s turn to show his frustration on the touchline. United looked relatively comfortable in the first half, but shortly after half-time they provided a reminder that they remain a work in progress.

Twice in the space of a minute and 42 seconds, crosses were slung into the penalty area from the Forest right and twice the ball ended up in the net. The first was a mis-match at the back post as Morgan Gibbs-White — a boyhood United fan — peeled off onto Amad and muscled his way past the Ivorian to score. The second was a mess. United didn’t deal with the cross, Igor Jesus won a header over a bundle of bodies and Savona nipped in front of Diogo Dalot to poke the ball home.

It was then that the travelling fans in the corner of the stadium began to have flashbacks to last season. United were rocking and Forest were rampant. But rather than slip to a defeat, Amorim’s team rallied and equalised nine minutes from time when Amad rifled in a volley from the edge of the box.

The result might have been even better, but Amad saw another goal bound effort blocked on the line by Murillo in stoppage time. Despite his disappointment at having to settle for a point, Amorim was sure that if the same game was played last season, United would have lost.

“Yes,” he said bluntly. “And by more goals. That is my feeling. We lost control of the game for five minutes and we paid a price. “We came from three good games and we have a different confidence. We can have bad moments, but suddenly we have three good games.

“So football is like that. And a game is like that also. We have good moments, we score. You can sense that we have control of the game when the first half finishes. We start the second half and we suffer.

“We disconnect for five minutes and that’s enough in the Premier League. But we managed to recover from that and that’s a good feeling.”

It’s the first time since the 1-1 draw with Bournemouth in April that United have earned a point after falling behind. If nothing else, United’s resilience and confidence — so fragile last season — is growing and the momentum is still intact.

There were positives for Amorim and negatives ahead of the trip to Tottenham next weekend. More ups and more downs. The United rollercoaster is showing no signs of slowing down.