It wasn't the smoothest sailing for Ruben Amorim, but Manchester United are in the Premier League win column thanks to a late Bruno Fernandes penalty kick. Jan Kruger/Getty Images

MANCHESTER, England -- There was no great celebration from Ruben Amorim when referee Sam Barrott's final whistle brought to an end Manchester United's chaotic 3-2 win over Burnley.

He shook hands with Scott Parker, got a hug from Joshua Zirkzee and walked along the sideline and down the tunnel alone. He occasionally slowed his pace to wipe the Manchester rain from his brow and clap the fans shouting messages of encouragement, but that was it. No screams of joy or big fist pumps -- more relief than anything else.

Amorim used his prematch news conference on Friday to explain the emotional turmoil of being United manager, particularly in the days following the shock Carabao Cup exit at the hands of fourth-tier Grimsby Town. "Sometimes I love my players, sometimes I hate my players," was one of his soundbites.

You imagine that after watching his team twice throw away a lead against newly promoted Burnley before needing a 97-minute penalty from Bruno Fernandes -- awarded by VAR Stuart Attwell -- to claim a first win of the season, the Portuguese coach felt all of that and more over the course of the afternoon.

He joked last season on his 40th birthday that he was already feeling 50. There were times against Burnley when he looked 150. Still, when the pressure is on, a win is a win, and United finally have one.

At the very least, it should buy Amorim some time to plot more convincing victories once the Premier League resumes after the international break. Whether this team is actually capable of that is up for debate, particularly with Manchester City and Chelsea up next.

Amorim, for one, has already seen too much in his 10 months in charge to get carried away. "I'm not thinking about a turning point," he said afterward. "I had this conversation with you guys like 10 times. [The game] ended well.

"I think we deserved to win the game, And then, everything in this moment, every possession near our box, they can score. We are in that moment, so we start always chasing a lot of things. But we deserved [to win] and we tried until the last minute to score goals. We had our chances and in the end we deserved to win."

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The result wasn't the only positive. United created enough openings to have 26 shots on Burnley's goal, and they could have quite easily gone in at halftime 4-0 up. Amad Diallo missed one sitter after a clinical counterattack involving Zirkzee and Bryan Mbeumo.

Mbeumo, the summer signing from Brentford, scored his first league goal after finding the net against Grimsby. His overall performance offered hope that the Cameroon forward might be key in helping Amorim's much-debated 3-4-3 system begin to click.

Ruben Amorim has defended his players following another sub-par performance following their 3-2 win vs Burnley.

"It was impressive," Amorim said when asked about Mbeumo's display. "The way he stretched the team, the quality he has in the first touch. You can feel that we are a different team, because when we win the ball, we have one guy stretching the team. Last season we struggled a little bit with that."

But United also struggled defensively last season on their way to a disastrous 15th-place finish in the Premier League, and there were more issues against Burnley. After conceding two against Grimsby, they shipped two more against Scott Parker's side.

The first was almost a carbon copy of Fulham's equalizer at Craven Cottage last weekend -- a ball into the box from out wide, and a striker, this time Lyle Foster, exploiting gaps between the back three. Burnley's second came from another set piece after Arsenal's winner at Old Trafford on the opening weekend, which came from a corner from the left. This one started with a long throw from Kyle Walker from the same side and ended with Jaidon Anthony stabbing his finish into the net via a Kobbie Mainoo deflection.

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There were elements of United's play that will cause fans to break out into a cold sweat when they think about trips to the Etihad Stadium and Anfield before the end of October. For Amorim, though, the most important element was the response from his players following the disaster at Grimsby. Anything less would have raised serious questions about Amorim's position.

"When they put in the effort, I will always love my players," said the United boss. "Even when Amad is missing that kind of goal. I love Amad, if he's giving everything. And I think we need to understand that we should have always been on this level of effort.

"The match is not so perfect and you can feel that the team struggled a little bit, especially in the second half, but the effort was always there. That is the most important thing."

This was only Amorim's fifth league win at Old Trafford since taking the job in November. He will know that it will take more than a stoppage-time winner against Burnley to change the growing number of doubters into believers that he's the man to rescue the club from the mediocrity of the past 10 years.

At the end of another drama-filled roller-coaster afternoon, Amorim wasn't in the mood to celebrate or talk about turning points. In the final answer of his post-match news conference, he admitted, with the situation he's in, he can only think "day by day." Victory over Burnley has bought him a few more.