Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach

Some questionable decisions today.
 
I do agree that, that football under SAF was a hard watch at times but that football wouldn't hold up in this era.
I think we need to be realistic however and realise that we ain’t dominating these games anytime soon. The first half was actually the most organised we’ve looked for ages. Nobody looked like scoring in open play. Everyone kept their cool. As soon as the first goal went in, players started to shit the bed. We dont have the players to go to these grounds and dominate, I guess what I’m trying to say is even when we did have the great man and the players we still struggled in a lot of these games.
 
His hands are somewhat tied with the fitness of the squad but it was too timid a set up and tactical instruction (we were clearly wasting time in the first half).

Only his third(?) game in charge. We won’t hold it too hard against him.
 
We never went toe to toe with any of the 'big 6' under ten Hag, that's why his record against them was so poor, we always showed them too much respect and was set up to sit in and counter.

Yeah I don't think you actually watched us last year then.

And not sure what else you want us to do, we didnt' "sit in" at all and generally pressed high. We just don't have the quality in possession to progress the ball through the lines and create chances consistently against a top side. That has nothing to do with Amorim or any other coach. Just go through the names on that team sheet and it should be obvious:

Bruno: good creator, lacks any sort of pace or dribbling ability so is forced to release passes under pressure
Garnacho: poor technically, better off the ball than on it right now
Hojlund: poor techincally, solid finisher but is never going to trouble a defender of Saliba's level
Mount: Good tehnically but very safe as a player and generally is just a body to run around as he offers very little on the ball
Ugarte: one of the few that can hang both from a physical and technical level. Surprise surprise, he had a good game today
Malacia: Poor going forward and just coming back from injury.
Dalot: Good technically and physically, but poor decision maker in the attacking third.

That group of 7 players just isn't going to threaten any top level side. Bruno is the only real creator and he has his own flaws, while the rest don't progress the ball nor create particularly well with many often being actually poor under pressure. So instead you see a first half where they are all playing it safe and the few times we had a chance to break through or put arsenal under pressure we feck up the execution.
 
Bottled it hard tonight. Why talk about us suffering and taking time to learn new things only to then play ultra cowardly football? Would have been way more understanding and forgiving if we atleast showed some intent to attack.

Multiple times we had the opportunity on the break in the first half which we did not pursue at all. Gave Arsenal way too much respect. And they were only too happy to let us have the ball as we did feck all with it. Controlling the possession is nonsense and useless if we don't do anything with it. It's like City being happy with 70% possession in the FA Cup final when they did feck all with it in the first half.

Disappointed with how negative we were. Arsenal were missing 3 of their first choice defence. We should have tried to work them more. In the end it was all too comfortable for them.

Agree with your sentiments. Everyone seems happy for now but realistically like the commentators said we need to find a balance between defending and attacking. That possession is pointless when its mostly in our defensive areas.
 
Bottled it hard tonight. Why talk about us suffering and taking time to learn new things only to then play ultra cowardly football? Would have been way more understanding and forgiving if we atleast showed some intent to attack.

Multiple times we had the opportunity on the break in the first half which we did not pursue at all. Gave Arsenal way too much respect. And they were only too happy to let us have the ball as we did feck all with it. Controlling the possession is nonsense and useless if we don't do anything with it. It's like City being happy with 70% possession in the FA Cup final when they did feck all with it in the first half.

Disappointed with how negative we were. Arsenal were missing 3 of their first choice defence. We should have tried to work them more. In the end it was all too comfortable for them.
No one really cares what you think
 
It wasnt at all. Dalot and malacia contributed 0 to our attack in the 1st half not even a cross from both.
Don't have a problem at all with us going with a safety first approach. We've suffered so many humiliations in recent years so very understandable that Amorim wanted to avoid that.
 
Some positives in our setup and passing lines at least.

I think many are blowing up Arsenal too much, they've not been in that City Pool bracket for us, we'd have to go back to Sanchez and the De Gea heroics where we faced an onslaught. So while it was good to see some of Amorim's efforts, this fixture and Arsenal haven't been that formidable team. We just get unstuck by silly moments, like deflections, corners against them. Bit odd to read people trembling before kickoff.
 
Team he put out was horrible but I suppose he had no choice. Amad should definitely have started though.

I can see the system taking shape but it looks like a system that can only succeed with lots of athletic and technical players, which we have few of.
 
I don't really understand the criticism- we're playing the second best team in the country at their place and I'd be worried if we didn't play pragmatic football after what, a few training sessions he's had with them?

The gaps in our shape only started appearing in the second half after we needed to chase the game. Otherwise we restricted Arsenal very well but just couldn't cope with the corners.

The worrying thing from his perspective is that he replaced an ineffective but hardworking attack (Mount, Hojlund, Garnacho) with, in theory, subs that could have hurt Arsenal and it actually got worse on every level, from workrate to finishing to chance creation. Amad was the only one who did alright.
 
I think we will be good under him. You could see some positives today but obviously there are a lot of issues as it's early days. Most importantly physically we were outclassed and Arsenal also have a legitimate argument that they are the best team in the world, and I'd say they're objectively top 3.

Whilst there's definitely a lot of players Amorim can work with and could have long-term futures in a successful United side, we are missing some important profiles and we need to be patient.
 
Has my support but needs to start being ruthless as soon as possible beginning in January
 
I like what I am seeing, but that wouldn't be too hard after the disaster that was eth. It's going to be difficult for him when you come into a shit show that was left by allowing a manager so far out of his depth to have the first 3 months of the season.
 
Bottled it hard tonight. Why talk about us suffering and taking time to learn new things only to then play ultra cowardly football? Would have been way more understanding and forgiving if we atleast showed some intent to attack.

Multiple times we had the opportunity on the break in the first half which we did not pursue at all. Gave Arsenal way too much respect. And they were only too happy to let us have the ball as we did feck all with it. Controlling the possession is nonsense and useless if we don't do anything with it. It's like City being happy with 70% possession in the FA Cup final when they did feck all with it in the first half.

Disappointed with how negative we were. Arsenal were missing 3 of their first choice defence. We should have tried to work them more. In the end it was all too comfortable for them.

Well said, we were ultra cautious in the first half even when we got into decent attacking positions. Just turned back and passed it back every time.

Yes, possession and control is good but we're not gonna score playing safe all the time!
 
If you think about it we only lost the part of the game he doesn’t coach.

Nah but it’s what I expected really. Hard to do much in the current scenario especially with the missing LCB shifting everyone out of position.
 
People moaning about us being defensive. Numerous times the camera panned to Amorim telling the players to play faster. He sure as shit didn't want slow build up play.

Though, he is definitely shocked at the lack of quality/clutch some of these players have.
 
No one really cares what you think
I'm simply sharing my thoughts here, as others have done. However, my perspective differs from others. I'm not sure if you have any issue with me, but if you truly don't care about what I think, you can just not reply at all. It's really that simple.
 
Set up was fine and we defended pretty well in open play. He clearly wanted us to keep the ball but we were just a bit too safe with it at times. On the flip side, it was nice to see us not give it away every 5 seconds and create a basketball match which we had a habit of doing under ETH.

We all knew we were going to lose though. We're miles away from these teams, especially going forward.
 
I'm simply sharing my thoughts here, as others have done. However, my perspective differs from others. I'm not sure if you have any issue with me, but if you truly don't care about what I think, you can just not reply at all. It's really that simple.
Please be quiet now.
 
Team he put out was horrible but I suppose he had no choice. Amad should definitely have started though.

I can see the system taking shape but it looks like a system that can only succeed with lots of athletic and technical players, which we have few of.
Amad was absolutely gassed after Everton. We also set up much more defensively.

People (not you) saying we shouldn’t have set up pragmatically?? Fergie set up pragmatically away from home. Arteta does. A lot of big teams do when they are a relatively even level.

I saw enough from this game that I’m excited. We played very solid in the first half, has a system and players somehow remembered to pass. Second half we tired massively and the fact we are early in this journey showed. Being overly negative is fecking stupid and you need a reality check some of you.

(Again Blood Mage only the top part of the comment was a response to you)
 
I think we need to be realistic however and realise that we ain’t dominating these games anytime soon. The first half was actually the most organised we’ve looked for ages. Nobody looked like scoring in open play. Everyone kept their cool. As soon as the first goal went in, players started to shit the bed. We dont have the players to go to these grounds and dominate, I guess what I’m trying to say is even when we did have the great man and the players we still struggled in a lot of these games.
I'm not expecting us to dominate them, just have a go at least, if we got suckered on a counter then so be it. Tonight we just didn't show any intent to go and hurt them until it was too late.


Yeah I don't think you actually watched us last year then.

And not sure what else you want us to do, we didnt' "sit in" at all and generally pressed high. We just don't have the quality in possession to progress the ball through the lines and create chances consistently against a top side. That has nothing to do with Amorim or any other coach. Just go through the names on that team sheet and it should be obvious:

Bruno: good creator, lacks any sort of pace or dribbling ability so is forced to release passes under pressure
Garnacho: poor technically, better off the ball than on it right now
Hojlund: poor techincally, solid finisher but is never going to trouble a defender of Saliba's level
Mount: Good tehnically but very safe as a player and generally is just a body to run around as he offers very little on the ball
Ugarte: one of the few that can hang both from a physical and technical level. Surprise surprise, he had a good game today
Malacia: Poor going forward and just coming back from injury.
Dalot: Good technically and physically, but poor decision maker in the attacking third.

That group of 7 players just isn't going to threaten any top level side. Bruno is the only real creator and he has his own flaws, while the rest don't progress the ball nor create particularly well with many often being actually poor under pressure. So instead you see a first half where they are all playing it safe and the few times we had a chance to break through or put arsenal under pressure we feck up the execution.
I definitely did and we never once went toe to toe with a big team. We always sat in and countered as ten Hag himself said he wanted us to be the best transitional side.

So, you thought we went for it in the first half tonight?

The way a team is set up is always down to the manager/head coach, they are the ones who set the tactics to be implemented in a game.
 
Team he put out was horrible but I suppose he had no choice. Amad should definitely have started though.

I can see the system taking shape but it looks like a system that can only succeed with lots of athletic and technical players, which we have few of.
Other than the Amad decision I thought the team was one picked for energy and workrate and it largely worked. He must have been disappointed by Antony, Zirkzee and Rashford when they came on though.
 
Set up was fine and we defended pretty well in open play. He clearly wanted us to keep the ball but we were just a bit too safe with it at times. On the flip side, it was nice to see us not give it away every 5 seconds and create a basketball match which we had a habit of doing under ETH.

We all knew we were going to lose though. We're miles away from these teams, especially going forward.
Agree! To be fair I think the plan was to keep the ball, take the sting out of it, then second half Rash and big ZZ to win it for us. Which is quite a sound idea.
 
I do agree that, that football under SAF was a hard watch at times but that football wouldn't hold up in this era.
A hard watch? Up until the early 200s we went toe to toe - great entertaining battles. Pretty much after that, we aggressively bullied them year on year with a few exceptions.

It would hold up today purely down to one reason - desire. We had players that fought for the club then.
 
Just sharing my thoughts mate. I felt he could have got us attacking a bit in the first half but we were way too defensive and passed back even when we had the opportunity to attack. And it was not just one player doing it, all of them were doing the same. Which makes me think it was due to instructions from the coach and not the players.
 
I think we set our stall out to get to half time level and he did bring on Amad to be a lot more attacking but the corners killed us especially when we have players trying to flick it up in his own corner flag
 
Just sharing my thoughts mate. I felt he could have got us attacking a bit in the first half but we were way too defensive and passed back even when we had the opportunity to attack. And it was not just one player doing it, all of them were doing the same. Which makes me think it was due to instructions from the coach and not the players.
What makes you so sure it was the coaching and not the players?
 
People saying the setup was good but almost conceded 3 from a corner oops
 
People saying the setup was good but almost conceded 3 from a corner oops
Yeah what are you moaning about? We didn’t concede from open play away from home to the title challengers which means our setup was good.