Ruben Amorim joked Manchester United were "stealing" set-piece routines after a second-half turnaround at Crystal Palace got them back on track in the Premier League.
Amorim's critics quickly returned after United slipped to an abject loss at home to 10-man Everton on Monday to end an encouraging five-match unbeaten run.
When Jean-Philippe Mateta broke the deadlock for Palace in the 36th-minute with a retaken penalty, Amorim’s tenure was set for another setback, but the inconsistent Joshua Zirkzee levelled nine minutes into second half after he collected Bruno Fernandes’ free kick.
United captain Fernandes then teed up Mason Mount to curl home the winner after 63 minutes from a quickly-taken free kick to earn the visitors a much-needed 2-1 victory.
It made it four wins in seven under Amorim and United are only four points off rivals Manchester City after another away match where they have scored from a set-piece following goals at Nottingham Forest and Tottenham in November from corners.
"We have more time to work and we work a lot and we are learning," Amorim acknowledged.
"We learn a lot in England. You are used to do that and see that (set-piece), but when you come to the Premier League, you learn a lot about how other the teams do it.
"And we are stealing a lot of things to score goals."
United were second-best during the first 45 at Selhurst Park and Palace should have added to their tally after Mateta’s opener, but Luke Shaw thwarted Yeremy Pino and Eddie Nketiah with terrific tackles.
Amorim warned his players that fatigue would set in for Palace after Thursday’s trip to France to face Strasbourg in Conference League and his premonition occurred as the hosts’ struggled to come back after they conceded twice in quick succession.
He added: "I said to the players we need to be more alive and you could feel that. If you are more alive, you are in more places, near the ball more often and everyone did that, but we also need to understand that the opponent is tired.
"If you see the last plays of the game, they were struggling so much to take the ball out of the box and you could feel it in the way they move that they were getting tired for the second half and we talked about that.
"And again, our pace and intensity in the first half, we cannot play like that in Premier League, so we increased that. I had the feeling and we had the feeling that if we scored one goal, this would change completely."
Zirkzee’s fine arrowed effort flipped the script for United and this strike was his first league goal in 25 matches.
"He was really important but again was not just the goal," Amorim insisted.
"Even the runs behind, in the first half he struggled on the duels and won some duels in the second half.
"We improve a lot because of the quality of Josh in the second half and that’s important for him to understand that it is not just the goal."
Palace boss Oliver Glasner cut a frustrated figure at full-time and bemoaned the club’s lack of transfer activity after he watched his threadbare squad struggle to juggle domestic and European commitments.
"It’s now time to mention it, it’s clear our fault," Glasner blasted.
"We missed to strengthen the depth of the squad in summer. We knew the schedule, we knew Ismaila (Sarr) would go to AFCON. Nothing (was) surprising.
"I think when you play European football for the first time in your history, let’s invest instead of save. We saved and that’s what we’re facing."
