PL D FA Premier League

Ipswich Town 1:1 Manchester United

Post-match discussion


Sun, 24 November 2024

very disjointed, but he needs time. He is a class manager and time will show it.
 
Sleepless nights will be starting for Ruben after the game yesterday. When he took over he must have thought 'yes its not good but I can see some light at the end of the tunnel'.
That belief was shattered after the first few minutes of the game.
Rashford for a few minutes took up the role of the CF, then wandered aimlessly around, allowing more eager Ipswich players to race past him as he sidled back towards our goal.
For me Onana, Daillo and Mazrouai were stand-outs especially Onana who prevented us getting a real beating.
I like Amorin's post match remarks about "not doing a lot of talking when you are losing"
Maybe when he's had more time with the current squad he will get a better tune out of them, but wholesale changes are needed.
 
I noticed. Why the hell was he smiling so much at full time whilst talking to Lee Grant? He's not a serious footballer.
He forgot he is playing a different sport. He thought he just dropped a triple-double in the NBA finals instead of grinding out a point at home. Probably already picking out which clothing and chain to wear when he jets off to LA to hang out with LeBron.
 
Play Amad closer to their goal, not as a rwb. Shaw should be a wing back not a center back. Also play ugarte and casemiro in midfield.

Hopefully this guy is not as stubborn as Erik.


I think that we will get better formations once he is able to train fully with everyone. Like he said, some people only had 1 training session with him before the game.
 
After an exciting build-up over the last couple of weeks and then making the perfect start, that ended up being underwhelming. In the end we were slightly fortunate to get the point thanks to Onana.

If Amorim wasn't fully aware before the game of how difficult a task he has, he'll certainly have a better idea now.
 
Mazraoui and Onana get a 6/10 and 7/10 respectively. Solid throughout.

The rest get 5's and 4's. The players didnt do enough to win the game.
Pretty average stuff

Amorim has his work cut out.
 
We had only 2 Midfielders 100% fit , and it wasn’t that much of a head scratcher as Casemiro and Eriksen have been our 2 best midfielders this season.
I think Ugarte should have started, even if we had only got a half out of him.

Yes, Casemiro and Eriksen have been decent, but only when the intensity level in the game is low. Like against Leicester or is some of the European games.
 
Unfortunately, one player that seems to completely not fit the system is Garnacho. I don't think he can be anything special in Amorim's system. He is a player of great potential but it doesn't look like he will make it in 3-4-3, we should sell him ASAP if we can make some good money for him and if we are sticking with Amorim and 3-4-4 (can't see how we wouldn't)
I'd like to see a 3-4-4 too, that extra man would be handy.

I think it's too early to rule Garnacho out though. He's obviously been frustratingly inconsistent recently but he's 20 years old, we shouldn't be relying on him every week as our best attacking player, and there's plenty of time for him to adapt to a more central position.
 
Mazraoui and Onana get a 6/10 and 7/10 respectively. Solid throughout.

The rest get 5's and 4's. The players didnt do enough to win the game.
Pretty average stuff

Amorim has his work cut out.
I really didn't think Mazraoui was that good. He was ball-watching on one of the big Ipswich chances, the back 3 looked shaky generally and I didn't notice any particularly impressive involvements.
 
We were very poor but it will take Amorim a good amount of time to have an impact (And probably new personnel).

Rashford was his usual insanely lazy self. To be like that in the first game under a new manager is bonkers. A huge shake up is needed.

Utd is the hardest job in world football right now. I really hope Amorim is the right man. He has really good energy and charisma about him and that's all I can go off for now.
 
Very good for 20 mins. Controlled possession, passed it around nicely, didn’t give the ball away. Then went downhill.

Apart from the goal Rashford didn’t contribute, neither did Bruno.

Would love to see the two 10s be Mount/Zirkee and Garnacho/ Amad with Rasmus as the 9.

Garnacho will not work as a 10. He has little vision and poor passing skills (namely the right weight of the pass).
 
What we saw yesterday was one team who had been working to a plan for a long period of time, knew all their roles inside out, were comfortable and confident with their play and another team who were almost the exact opposite at times. We'll get better the more we play in this system, the more time Amorim can get with the players on the training ground and having the right players in the right positions, which I'm sure he's still also working out.

Think Amad has looked like he could nail down that RWB spot though. Garnacho didn't look comfortable at the IF position at times so might need more work or maybe he'll try him at LWB too. I feel that Mount will be better in those positions behind the striker though.

Can see with this structure and shape we had the overload in midfield throughout the game but didn't seem to take advantage of this at all too. Hopefully again this is something they'll learn to recognise better now.
 
Hi all! First time posting.

I am a big Sporting Clube de Portugal fan and, given all the Ruben-Amorim hype, I watched today’s game closely. I watch Man Utd games occasionally, as I like to follow Bruno’s performances, but today I watched with the attention I usually only devote to Sporting and Portugal NT’s games. And I must say, Ruben has a lot of work to do…

Before getting into the performance of individual players, I should say that I thought the whole team seemed too tentative, too much trying to think about the correct positioning, players often too static out of the ball (players need to make their marker doubt whether they’ll be receiving the ball to feet or on space) and not enough confidence and aggressiveness on the ball. I hope that Amorim can improve this quickly, or Man Utd’s football will not be pleasing for a while.

Some thoughts on individual players:

- Rashford – He has pace and some skill. But barring a major change of attitude, I don’t think he will have what it takes to be the center forward for Amorim (or even to be in the starting squad at all). His work rate seems extremely low, as he rarely bothered to press. Also, he seems quite poor at receiving the ball with the back to goal, as both his first touch and strength are unimpressive for the role.

- Garnacho – Seemed the most dangerous player for Man Utd. Thinking about RA’s Sporting setup, I didn’t think that Garnacho would be ideal for an inside forward role, as I didn’t think he has the close control in tight spaces that best suits that role. But this game has made me change my mind about using Garnacho there for several reasons: (1) he definitely is quite skillful, and I think he can learn to play inside; (2) he has excellent work-rate, and I think Amorim will be happy with his willingness to press; (3) at least early on, Man Utd will actually be playing a lot more in the counter than Sporting CP usually does in the Portuguese League, so Garnacho will have a lot of opportunities to run.

- Bruno – My first impression is that BF will have more success as an 8 than as one of the inside forwards under Amorim. I think Bruno is most dangerous the closer he is to goal, as his main strengths are his shooting and passing ability; however, he is not an elite dribbler. Also, he often wants to come deep to get the ball, vacating the inside forward position. He has good workrate and stamina, so I think he can do a job in the box-to-box 8 role in Amorim’s system as long he keeps some positional discipline and limits the Hollywood passes. Early in the second half, Man Utd started to control the game more by having Bruno drop deeper when in possession and form more of an asymmetric 3-5-2 shape in possession. Later, when Casemiro was subbed, Bruno just become the 8. I think he should remain there…

- Amad – He has all the right skills and physical characteristics to play as a right wing-back for Ruben, and he showed them in the game's very first play. He is a similar type of player to Quenda and Geny Catamo, who’ve had great success as Amorim’s right wing-backs. However, later in the game, he seemed to be losing a bit of interest and was quite static in his positioning when off the ball. I hope that was just my impression, and not Amad not giving his 100% for not liking to be constantly in such a wide position.

- Dalot – I think he has good physical and technical attributes for the wingback position. But he seems to have very low confidence at the moment and is afraid of making mistakes. There was one play in which Garnacho was on the ball close to the line on the break with Dalot inside, and rather than making the run for the open space, Dalot preferred to just fall behind Garnacho in the wing. On defense, he also was giving up quite a bit of space to players on the ball, rather than get tight. I hope he can improve a lot…

- Hojlund – It was quite an immediate difference pressing-wise when Hojlund subbed in for Rashford. The lad seems to have quite good workrate and pace. But his decision-making was a bit poor in a couple plays, as he seemed afraid to shoot. Hope Ruben can get him to be more aggressive.

- Zirkzee – Good technique and good physicality, seemed like a player who could do well getting ball with back to goal and serving colleagues. He had a very poor shot at some point, but I think he will improve. I think Ruben may like him as a bench option for an inside forward slot.

I believe Ruben will ultimately be successful. He has implemented a style of play in Sporting that was both successful and a joy to watch, and I think he will eventually be able to implement it at Man Utd. But the path towards it may be a bit slower than my initial, overly optimistic projection...
 
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Garnacho will not work as a 10. He has little vision and poor passing skills (namely the right weight of the pass).

To be fair, it's not really two 10s in completely the same way as the #10 in a 4231 though. It's more like a hybrid #10/inside forward, they're supposed to work the channels as well as the space behind the strikers, and that can be done in different ways. But I agree it's a bit hard to see with Garnacho who is most effective either going outside or cutting in from the flank.
 
Think Eriksen is fine when surrounded by teammates who are working their socks off leaving him to ping passes. Unfortunately he is surrounded my players who either don't have the legs or can't be bothered to work hard.

I think the same with Casemiro. His first year here he did seem to still have the legs. Similar with Eriksen. Then injuries to both seem to have taken that yard off them. Casemiro seems to still be able to affect games and dies off after an hour, but Eriksen just watches the game go past him now. Can still provide quality on the ball, but when you look at the better teams than us, they don't carry players, because they have players who provide quality on the ball AND can cover ground quickly, so they don't need to compromise. Not only that but they will pounce on any weakness like that very quickly.

Think we saw that yesterday with Evans. Don't think he's a bad footballer or even had a bad game but as soon as they realised he had to give them space, that was where the ball was being played, and then he was constantly chasing shadows about. This was a team in 18th place who just got promoted, realising they could pick us off because we couldn't cope with their fitness/physicality levels in an area of the pitch. That is not good.

Its all fairly obvious stuff that we've been saying on here for over a year now as well, but nothing will change until we move away from picking players just because they are there and can play in a certain position, or are "good professionals". Ronaldo was a good professional yet we decided he didn't fit because he couldn't cover the ground. One of the greatest players ever, and we (correctly) prioritised the team over him due to his age and ability (or lack of) to press consistently. Somehow we went from that to relying on Johnny Evans and tolerating Rashford walking about in the space of less than a year.

There needs to be a base line in terms of the response, fitness and physicality level, and if a player is below it they should be outside of contention, regardless of who else is available. Until you have that standard it doesn't exist for any of the players, and they also wont be able to believe in what the manager is trying to do because invariably in the PL that would involve consistent levels of work and physicality throughout the team. If you have 10 players pressing or closing down space as part of a unit and 1 who can't, it isn't going to work and the result is none of them will do it because the opposition will pick off the weak link.

Not a criticism of Amorim at all as he's had barely a week to tran with the players and is only going to find out things by trying them in games, but its something where I really hope he backs up what he's said about the importance of fitness/physicality and the team functioning as one unit. ETH said all these things and DID implement it for a time, but then it seemed to die a death. Same to an extent with Ole. I don't think its the players being lazy. Its when the manager drifts away from the principles and the plan as a result stops working, and then the players will give up on it sooner or later.

Drifting a million miles away from post match talk here. but still
 
Same problems as always really. None of the front three really worked and the midfield wasn't very good. It's going to take time and it's clear some of our players just aren't going to fit this system. I think a Mainoo and Ugarte midfield will make a big difference, as will having a proper striker like Holjund in. Big improvement when Shaw came on and you'd expect similar if Martinez was available.

It'll be interesting to see how he tweaks the front three. I think we have the players for a good back three but how he decides who becomes a wingback and who gets in those central 10ish positions will be a big call. Garnacho was very ineffective there (Bruno was too but we at least know he can play there), so what does he do with Rashford/Garnacho/Amad.

I do like that Amorim at least recognizes it's going to be rocky to start but if we want to improve we have to stick with it.
 
Amorim would be thinking my Sporting team would've score 7 or 8 goals against this United team. What Shambles of a performance. We are already struggling in the 4-3-3 formation, it will take a lot of time for us to learn the 3-4-2-1 formation. Amorim was pretty honest in his post match interview, the players struggled to understand their positions, they were left unsighted without any vision too many times. It was so bad for most of the game, we made a lot of mistakes as usual and kept losing the ball. Amorim has a lot of work to do and I think Mainoo and Ugarte are our two midfielders and not Case and Eriksen. Our wingbacks should be Shaw and Mazraoui and not Amad and Dalot was it. It was horrible to watch. Amad needs to play in the advanced role, & Bruno should play on the left with either of our 2 strikers up front. Rashford needs a break. I know he scored but he was lost for the rest of the game.
 
I think we improved with Ugarte and Bruno in the middle.
Case +Eriksen together in there just does not really work.
No, it was a disappointing result the main aim now is to see in next few games is that the idea as Amorin says takes effect more , he's going with a 3 CB option that's the easy part imo it's the wing backs and CM to the 3 up front he has to work out.
I think we improved with Ugarte and Bruno in the middle.
Case +Eriksen together in there just does not really work.
 
It's only the first game and naturally we have to be patient to see results, of course we do. But it does feel a bit crushing to get a weak performance of this particular kind - limp, listless, with no apparent ambition or fight - just once again a slightly sub-average team on a slightly-sub average day. 12th seems just about right. It's been nearly two years since we stringed together a reasonably long stretch of good performances, and the starting point just feels worse than it did even when Ole or Rangnick took over. And to top it off, none of the five players we invested in this summer seem likely to elevate us as a team, except maybe Yoro - who stands atop the hope chart simply by virtue of not having played yet.
 
I'll ask again. Is the formation a 5-2-2-1 or a 3-4-2-1? Clearly we had two DMs and Garnacho and Bruno were the two 10s. The width was mainly provided by the two wing backs.

I like that Amorim had the 2 DMs stay home most of the time. Yes, it didn't work because they are slow, but if ETH had done this we would have had more 1-0, 1-1 and 2-1 results. He stupidly gave them freedom to attack.
 
well said! what utterly useless performance.. all the build up for nothing

Pretty obvious not much was going to change.

It's like getting a really expensive new piano, being a complete novice and then being annoyed 2 days later that you can barely play it despite having 2 lessons.
 
Absolutely awful against a team that haven't played top flight football in over 20 years & will almost certainly will get relegated.

At least Ruben starts unbeaten so far.

I wonder if he'll make many changes for the next game.
 
Neither eriksen or casameiro have the stamina to start league games anymore. Rashford needs dropping. Lets hope yoro is all that because we cannot go forward with evans. We also need a more clinical striker to start.

Onana
yoro deligt martinez
Maz ugarte mainoo garnacho
Amad hojlund bruno

This is probably as good as it gets.
 
Absolutely awful against a team that haven't played top flight football in over 20 years & will almost certainly will get relegated.

At least Ruben starts unbeaten so far.

I wonder if he'll make many changes for the next game.

Agreed but Pep and Klopp didn't have an easy first year either
 
It's only the first game and naturally we have to be patient to see results, of course we do. But it does feel a bit crushing to get a weak performance of this particular kind - limp, listless, with no apparent ambition or fight - just once again a slightly sub-average team on a slightly-sub average day. 12th seems just about right. It's been nearly two years since we stringed together a reasonably long stretch of good performances, and the starting point just feels worse than it did even when Ole or Rangnick took over. And to top it off, none of the five players we invested in this summer seem likely to elevate us as a team, except maybe Yoro - who stands atop the hope chart simply by virtue of not having played yet.
Agreed with most of your points except Yoro.
He is a teenager and we should not pin our hopes on an untested teenager.
In 3-4 years, he might come good (the likelihood is low because to become a top player is incredibly difficult), but until he does, we should not be counting on him.

The performance itself was weak and usually, when a new manager takes over, although the tactics are "iffy", the effort level is very high. The crowd is buzzing. The atmosphere in the dressing room is good. That alone should increase the performance level. Apparently, this didn't happen.

We played the team in 19th place (relegation fodder, no offence to Ipswich) and there were long periods of time during which they looked the far better team. They clearly had a pattern of play. We seemed to be a counter-attacking team and lacked the ability to build from the back.
 
Agreed with most of your points except Yoro.
He is a teenager and we should not pin our hopes on an untested teenager.
In 3-4 years, he might come good (the likelihood is low because to become a top player is incredibly difficult), but until he does, we should not be counting on him.

The performance itself was weak and usually, when a new manager takes over, although the tactics are "iffy", the effort level is very high. The crowd is buzzing. The atmosphere in the dressing room is good. That alone should increase the performance level. Apparently, this didn't happen.

We played the team in 19th place (relegation fodder, no offence to Ipswich) and there were long periods of time during which they looked the far better team. They clearly had a pattern of play. We seemed to be a counter-attacking team and lacked the ability to build from the back.
Agreed, but my point was mainly that Yoro looks like the most promising of those signings because all the others have been various degrees of disappointing. Or well, I guess Mazraoui has been more or less as advertised, but he's not going to make us a better team.
 
Hi all! First time posting.

I am a big Sporting Clube de Portugal fan and, given all the Ruben-Amorim hype, I watched today’s game closely. I watch Man Utd games occasionally, as I like to follow Bruno’s performances, but today I watched with the attention I usually only devote to Sporting and Portugal NT’s games. And I must say, Ruben has a lot of work to do…

Before getting into the performance of individual players, I should say that I thought the whole team seemed too tentative, too much trying to think about the correct positioning, players often too static out of the ball (players need to make their marker doubt whether they’ll be receiving the ball to feet or on space) and not enough confidence and aggressiveness on the ball. I hope that Amorim can improve this quickly, or Man Utd’s football will not be pleasing for a while.

Some thoughts on individual players:

- Rashford – He has pace and some skill. But barring a major change of attitude, I don’t think he will have what it takes to be the center forward for Amorim (or even to be in the starting squad at all). His work rate seems extremely low, as he rarely bothered to press. Also, he seems quite poor at receiving the ball with the back to goal, as both his first touch and strength are unimpressive for the role.

- Garnacho – Seemed the most dangerous player for Man Utd. Thinking about RA’s Sporting setup, I didn’t think that Garnacho would be ideal for an inside forward role, as I didn’t think he has the close control in tight spaces that best suits that role. But this game has made me change my mind about using Garnacho there for several reasons: (1) he definitely is quite skillful, and I think he can learn to play inside; (2) he has excellent work-rate, and I think Amorim will be happy with his willingness to press; (3) at least early on, Man Utd will actually be playing a lot more in the counter than Sporting CP usually does in the Portuguese League, so Garnacho will have a lot of opportunities to run.

- Bruno – My first impression is that BF will have more success as an 8 than as one of the inside forwards under Amorim. I think Bruno is most dangerous the closer he is to goal, as his main strengths are his shooting and passing ability; however, he is not an elite dribbler. Also, he often wants to come deep to get the ball, vacating the inside forward position. He has good workrate and stamina, so I think he can do a job in the box-to-box 8 role in Amorim’s system as long he keeps some positional discipline and limits the Hollywood passes. Early in the second half, Man Utd started to control the game more by having Bruno drop deeper when in possession and form more of an asymmetric 3-5-2 shape in possession. Later, when Casemiro was subbed, Bruno just become the 8. I think he should remain there…

- Amad – He has all the right skills and physical characteristics to play as a right wing-back for Ruben, and he showed them in the game's very first play. He is a similar type of player to Quenda and Geny Catamo, who’ve had great success as Amorim’s right wing-backs. However, later in the game, he seemed to be losing a bit of interest and was quite static in his positioning when off the ball. I hope that was just my impression, and not Amad not giving his 100% for not liking to be constantly in such a wide position.

- Dalot – I think he has good physical and technical attributes for the wingback position. But he seems to have very low confidence at the moment and is afraid of making mistakes. There was one play in which Garnacho was on the ball close to the line on the break with Dalot inside, and rather than making the run for the open space, Dalot preferred to just fall behind Garnacho in the wing. On defense, he also was giving up quite a bit of space to players on the ball, rather than get tight. I hope he can improve a lot…

- Hojlund – It was quite an immediate difference pressing-wise when Hojlund subbed in for Rashford. The lad seems to have quite good workrate and pace. But his decision-making was a bit poor in a couple plays, as he seemed afraid to shoot. Hope Ruben can get him to be more aggressive.

- Zirkzee – Good technique and good physicality, seemed like a player who could do well getting ball with back to goal and serving colleagues. He had a very poor shot at some point, but I think he will improve. I think Ruben may like him as a bench option for an inside forward slot.

I believe Ruben will ultimately be successful. He has implemented a style of play in Sporting that was both successful and a joy to watch, and I think he will eventually be able to implement it at Man Utd. But the path towards it may be a bit slower than my initial, overly optimistic projection...
I’ve seen a number of Sporting fans comment on United posts online and here. The respect they have for Amorim is obvious and had a style of play that the fans loved. I can’t imagine it was an immediate change when he took over though. It’s encouraging to see these comments.

My fear is that this fanbase is far more fickle. Many expect immediate results, if not, the malignant British press start sniffing about to rub salt in the wounds and sow doubt amongst fans and players.

These fans won’t have the patience. I admit I used to be in this category around the time of LvG. I was impatient to return to our abilities we had just a few years prior. But now I’ve grown and matured to realise this isnt realistic. Giving our top man time to work his magic is the priority. I thought EtH would do this, but his tactical ineptitude became much more evident as time wore on…the fact Amorim made a sub at 56 minutes yesterday already tells me he doesn’t fear making a change unlike his predecessor. So refreshing.

He spits facts and I like his brutal honesty. No cloak and daggers.
 
Seems to be many people on here who still believe in Santa Claus

Fantastic squad inherited, fresh from international duty, 2 massive training sessions, world beating manager, all-conquering formation and we didn't win 19-0

Send him back up the effing chimney!!
 
I'd like to see a 3-4-4 too, that extra man would be handy.

I think it's too early to rule Garnacho out though. He's obviously been frustratingly inconsistent recently but he's 20 years old, we shouldn't be relying on him every week as our best attacking player, and there's plenty of time for him to adapt to a more central position.
I am horrible with typos :)

I would agree with you if we were still playing 4-3-3 system, but I simply don't see where somebody with Garnacho's skills would fit into 3-4-3. He is definitely not a winger in 3-4-3 since his defensive acumen is almost non-existent and 3-4-3 doesn't need pure wide wingers. Would he be good in the two behind the striker? I guess he could play that, but why would he use 50% of his potential and be maybe-decent, if he can go to a 4-3-3 club and be 100% of his best? Also, what benefit do we get out of curtailing his potential? We have too many players that can only play those two positions behind the striker, as is. Not to mention that Bruno seems like he got guaranteed start in one of them, so it's really too many people for one spot
 
Garnacho will not work as a 10. He has little vision and poor passing skills (namely the right weight of the pass).
Yeah. Amorim tends to prefer one 10 who is primarily a winger type player and the second 10 who is more of an actual 10 type player. So while both are playing as “10s” their profiles and what they offer tend to be different.

I’d prefer Amad as the 10 myself. But I don’t think Garnacho has the defensive work rate to play as the wingback and ultimately I think both are fantastic young players who should be starting. So based on that Amad wing back, Garnacho one of the 10s and I think Zirkzee or Mount (when fit) should be given a chance there. He gets a lot of slack but Zirkzee could be a great 10. He gets slack but if you look at the things he does well, once the confidence comes he could be very good there.
 
This is the manchester united way of playing we have been watching in majority of matches for last few seasons.
Even if we are in attacking third, the ball within seconds goes back to the our keeper who lofts it in the air and we lose possession.I am ok with that kind of performance against a top team not against Ipswich town.
Not sure whether due to Rashford playing in centre instead of player like Hojlund , our play in the center of park yesterday was abysmal.

But makes you wonder, why every new manager at this club takes a while to realize that.
 
The positive case for optimism that I saw was due to the difference between the last 20 minutes of the first half and the second half.

We were struggling for most of the first half and the crowd was really into it and Ipswich were dominating us and looked very threatening. Then the second half started and all of that seemed to change. We weren't exactly playing great still and we still obviously struggled massively in creating decent chances, but we made the game boring and took the crowd out it, for the most part.

I am way too dumb to understand tactical tweaks that might have caused this change, but I was happy to see it.

Also, cheers to Onana, who is making me eat my words by the bucketful every week. Long may it continue.
 
It was frustrating how Amad got forward in the second minute and got an assist, and then a few minutes later he got forward down the right again and he played a nice pass to Eriksen who placed his shot wide. And then...... it stopped. No more Amad getting down the right wing. Did Ipswich change something? Why did we stop?
 
Mazraoui and Onana get a 6/10 and 7/10 respectively. Solid throughout.

The rest get 5's and 4's. The players didnt do enough to win the game.
Pretty average stuff

Amorim has his work cut out.
Harsh on Amad. Thought he was better than anyone outside of Onana.

Everyone else seemed hesitant or in Dalot's case, dumb.

Someone needs to get hold of Dalot and coach the basics of being a full back/wing back into him because it's honestly infuriating
 
Hi all! First time posting.

I am a big Sporting Clube de Portugal fan and, given all the Ruben-Amorim hype, I watched today’s game closely. I watch Man Utd games occasionally, as I like to follow Bruno’s performances, but today I watched with the attention I usually only devote to Sporting and Portugal NT’s games. And I must say, Ruben has a lot of work to do…

Before getting into the performance of individual players, I should say that I thought the whole team seemed too tentative, too much trying to think about the correct positioning, players often too static out of the ball (players need to make their marker doubt whether they’ll be receiving the ball to feet or on space) and not enough confidence and aggressiveness on the ball. I hope that Amorim can improve this quickly, or Man Utd’s football will not be pleasing for a while.

Some thoughts on individual players:

- Rashford – He has pace and some skill. But barring a major change of attitude, I don’t think he will have what it takes to be the center forward for Amorim (or even to be in the starting squad at all). His work rate seems extremely low, as he rarely bothered to press. Also, he seems quite poor at receiving the ball with the back to goal, as both his first touch and strength are unimpressive for the role.

- Garnacho – Seemed the most dangerous player for Man Utd. Thinking about RA’s Sporting setup, I didn’t think that Garnacho would be ideal for an inside forward role, as I didn’t think he has the close control in tight spaces that best suits that role. But this game has made me change my mind about using Garnacho there for several reasons: (1) he definitely is quite skillful, and I think he can learn to play inside; (2) he has excellent work-rate, and I think Amorim will be happy with his willingness to press; (3) at least early on, Man Utd will actually be playing a lot more in the counter than Sporting CP usually does in the Portuguese League, so Garnacho will have a lot of opportunities to run.

- Bruno – My first impression is that BF will have more success as an 8 than as one of the inside forwards under Amorim. I think Bruno is most dangerous the closer he is to goal, as his main strengths are his shooting and passing ability; however, he is not an elite dribbler. Also, he often wants to come deep to get the ball, vacating the inside forward position. He has good workrate and stamina, so I think he can do a job in the box-to-box 8 role in Amorim’s system as long he keeps some positional discipline and limits the Hollywood passes. Early in the second half, Man Utd started to control the game more by having Bruno drop deeper when in possession and form more of an asymmetric 3-5-2 shape in possession. Later, when Casemiro was subbed, Bruno just become the 8. I think he should remain there…

- Amad – He has all the right skills and physical characteristics to play as a right wing-back for Ruben, and he showed them in the game's very first play. He is a similar type of player to Quenda and Geny Catamo, who’ve had great success as Amorim’s right wing-backs. However, later in the game, he seemed to be losing a bit of interest and was quite static in his positioning when off the ball. I hope that was just my impression, and not Amad not giving his 100% for not liking to be constantly in such a wide position.

- Dalot – I think he has good physical and technical attributes for the wingback position. But he seems to have very low confidence at the moment and is afraid of making mistakes. There was one play in which Garnacho was on the ball close to the line on the break with Dalot inside, and rather than making the run for the open space, Dalot preferred to just fall behind Garnacho in the wing. On defense, he also was giving up quite a bit of space to players on the ball, rather than get tight. I hope he can improve a lot…

- Hojlund – It was quite an immediate difference pressing-wise when Hojlund subbed in for Rashford. The lad seems to have quite good workrate and pace. But his decision-making was a bit poor in a couple plays, as he seemed afraid to shoot. Hope Ruben can get him to be more aggressive.

- Zirkzee – Good technique and good physicality, seemed like a player who could do well getting ball with back to goal and serving colleagues. He had a very poor shot at some point, but I think he will improve. I think Ruben may like him as a bench option for an inside forward slot.

I believe Ruben will ultimately be successful. He has implemented a style of play in Sporting that was both successful and a joy to watch, and I think he will eventually be able to implement it at Man Utd. But the path towards it may be a bit slower than my initial, overly optimistic projection...

Great to hear opinions from a Sporting fan who has seen Amorims career at Sporting. Very interesting and agree with a lot of what you are saying.

Top post, welcome and keep them coming.
 
I think the same with Casemiro. His first year here he did seem to still have the legs. Similar with Eriksen. Then injuries to both seem to have taken that yard off them. Casemiro seems to still be able to affect games and dies off after an hour, but Eriksen just watches the game go past him now. Can still provide quality on the ball, but when you look at the better teams than us, they don't carry players, because they have players who provide quality on the ball AND can cover ground quickly, so they don't need to compromise. Not only that but they will pounce on any weakness like that very quickly.

Think we saw that yesterday with Evans. Don't think he's a bad footballer or even had a bad game but as soon as they realised he had to give them space, that was where the ball was being played, and then he was constantly chasing shadows about. This was a team in 18th place who just got promoted, realising they could pick us off because we couldn't cope with their fitness/physicality levels in an area of the pitch. That is not good.

Its all fairly obvious stuff that we've been saying on here for over a year now as well, but nothing will change until we move away from picking players just because they are there and can play in a certain position, or are "good professionals". Ronaldo was a good professional yet we decided he didn't fit because he couldn't cover the ground. One of the greatest players ever, and we (correctly) prioritised the team over him due to his age and ability (or lack of) to press consistently. Somehow we went from that to relying on Johnny Evans and tolerating Rashford walking about in the space of less than a year.

There needs to be a base line in terms of the response, fitness and physicality level, and if a player is below it they should be outside of contention, regardless of who else is available. Until you have that standard it doesn't exist for any of the players, and they also wont be able to believe in what the manager is trying to do because invariably in the PL that would involve consistent levels of work and physicality throughout the team. If you have 10 players pressing or closing down space as part of a unit and 1 who can't, it isn't going to work and the result is none of them will do it because the opposition will pick off the weak link.

Not a criticism of Amorim at all as he's had barely a week to tran with the players and is only going to find out things by trying them in games, but its something where I really hope he backs up what he's said about the importance of fitness/physicality and the team functioning as one unit. ETH said all these things and DID implement it for a time, but then it seemed to die a death. Same to an extent with Ole. I don't think its the players being lazy. Its when the manager drifts away from the principles and the plan as a result stops working, and then the players will give up on it sooner or later.

Drifting a million miles away from post match talk here. but still

Definitely agree on Eriksen and Casemiro. Let's be absolutely honest, take their names off their shirts and forget their reputations and they wouldnt get game for many Premier League teams.

The Ronaldo point is a good one. Ten Hag froze him out because he couldn't press, only to allow others that don't press like Rashford to continue on. Got rid of Ronaldo and hard to bring in Weghorst from Burnley. It will go down in the United history books as one of the strangest managerial decisions.
 

Man of the Match

Andre Onana image Andre Onana 85% of 277 votes

Runners-up

Player Ratings

5.5 Total Average Rating

Highest Rated Player

Lowest Rated Player

Compiled from 285 ratings.

Score Predictions

206,10,13
  • Man Utd win
  • Ipswich win
  • Draw

Detailed Results

  • 22% Ipswich 1:3 Man Utd
  • 19% Ipswich 0:2 Man Utd
  • 17% Ipswich 1:2 Man Utd
  • 17% Ipswich 0:3 Man Utd
  • 5% Ipswich 0:4 Man Utd
  • 5% Ipswich 1:4 Man Utd
  • 3% Ipswich 1:1 Man Utd
  • 2% Ipswich 0:1 Man Utd
  • 2% Ipswich 0:0 Man Utd
  • 1% Ipswich 1:0 Man Utd
  • 1% Ipswich 2:2 Man Utd
  • 1% Ipswich 2:0 Man Utd
  • 1% Ipswich 2:1 Man Utd
  • 1% Ipswich 2:3 Man Utd
  • 1% Ipswich 2:4 Man Utd
  • 0% Ipswich 3:1 Man Utd
  • 0% Ipswich 0:9 Man Utd
  • 0% Ipswich 4:3 Man Utd
  • 0% Ipswich 0:5 Man Utd
  • 0% Ipswich 3:0 Man Utd
  • 0% Ipswich 0:8 Man Utd
Compiled from 229 predictions.
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Match Stats

  1. Ipswich
  2. Man Utd
Overall Possession
40.3% 59.7%
Shots
11 11
Shots on target
6 4
Shots off target
3 5
Blocked shots
2 2
Total touches in the box
11 16
Goalkeeper saves
3 5
Fouls
12 10
Corners
4 3

Referee

Anthony Taylor