Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach

[Pogue Mahone]

If it was not set pieces done us, and got a result his first half tactics would have been hailed as the best of best.

Given the situation of our squad, , he approached the match in right way(I know its not we want but sometimes we need to apply common sense),
bad luck we didn't build on in 2nd half but I think we will improve massively under Ruben in coming months.

Leaving entertainment aside, 1st half display was the most assured display we put up over the years.

Yup. That’s my take too. First half was a legitimately good to very good performance against the strongest opposition we’re likely to play in any given season.

Arsenal did up their game after half time but Amorin also decided to go for it with his substitutions. The plan was to obviously take the game to them and push for a win. That plan backfired but I admire the ambition almost as much as the way we neutralised them up until the point we decided to take a big risk and go for the three points.

 

[Lastwolf]

Think we all need to strap in for the rough ride. We’re gonna lose a hell of a lot of games this season. We’ve got city and Liverpool away in the next month and as hard as it is people are going to have to dissociate the emotional attachment to these games. Dunno about anyone else but I wasn’t particularly bothered about last night. At the very least we were competitive and solid in open play. But there was literally no way in hell we were ever winning that game.

Amorim for me has the hardest job of any manager post Fergie. Ten Hag has left him with the worse squad we’ve ever had, full of chancers and the most unathletic group of players you’ll ever see.
If we wants to give everyone an audition over these next few months great. Sink or swim.
He’s also playing a completely different system, one these players have very little experience with, so again it’s going to be very rough.
It’d be hard enough with a good group of players. He’s got plenty bad eggs in there.

Thats kinda half the fun of being a fan though, you get carried away with emotion.

No matter how much I structured my own expectations, 2 wins later and my heart I was shouting "hey, if we win every game, the league is still on"

It's going to be a funny year for the league, Top 5 is probably still possible even with double digit losses (which we are very likely to acheive), we are in the cups so try for them, Europa is probably the mostly likely route to UCL there is some time before we have to worry about playing real good. If we are still losing all over the show in March, then I'd start to get worried.

 

[NotoriousISSY]

He always struck as an adaptable planner, but it seems our set pieces defending was an afterthought.

Arsenal did a great reenactment of Stoke 2009, but you have to be wise to it. We looked vulnerable at every corner and our players allowed Onana to be swamped.

I understood the approach to the game, but between all 5 players who played in the front 3 positions in the game, not one of them had a good performance and it’s quite concerning. Hojlund dropped off so much in the second half after handling Saliba reasonably in the first.

I hope he has a plan to ensure we win all the games against lesser sides because we won’t score many points against the Top 6 with these players and their fragility.

 

[TMDaines]

Got four more big away matches before middle of Jan. Can’t stomach a repeat of ETH-level performances away from home against any decent side. Got to start becoming competitive in these games. It feels tragic sitting down to watch United on TV, versus going to Old Trafford where we perform more adequately.

 

[King7Eric]

Why are people upset over the result? What were you expecting with these group of players? I’ll reserve my judgement of the manager until he has a few more games under his belt.

Hopefully the top 4/5 talk will also calm down as it’s a bit of a joke.

It's not. Losing to Arsenal, or even City and Liverpool away in the next month is fine as they are all better than us. But it's not crazy to expect top 5 this season. These 3 and Chelsea will be top 4, but Spurs, Villa, Brighton etc aren't all that great so we shouldn't rule out being top 5.

Given we have Arsenal and Spurs away in the cups, it wouldn't be a massive surprise if we go out of both by mid January. So then we will have less games, a bit more time to train, and I would expect us to be able to get 5th place as well as go deep in the Europa League.

 

[Sarni]

Spot on.

Around a year into his reign there where some LFC fans calling for his head(same with Arteta).

Ruben has been here 3 weeks with most of the squad on international duty on week 1.

Even though we lost last night we still looked better coached than we have in years(don’t forget some of the shite he still has to work with).

I don't think there were, maybe some small minority that are never happy with anything. Liverpool were improving gradually and noticeably from the moment he joined, I think we will follow the same pattern under Amorim.

 

[saivet]

I know it's his fourth game, Arsenal are challengers and much ahead of us in their development, yada, yada, yada, but I was not overly impressed with us yesterday. Despite Arsenal deciding to play on the counter we were overly cautious in the first half and were happy not to concede. The moment they showed more attacking intent and tempo in the second half we couldn't handle them. Folks will say that they only got set-piece goals but they had thirteen corners compared to zero for us. Which means that all the attacking intent was shown by them and we were pretty toothless. Besides the de Ligt header we failed to work their keeper even once. I don't think Saliba and Kiwior were ever in any sort of bother. I was fully expecting the result, in fact I had predicted a worse scoreline; however I would have liked to see from us than put in such a tame performance.

Ruben has it up against the wall trying to get much out of our attack. I don't think it would be outrageous to suggest that our combined attacking unit is not even top 6 quality. It's amazing that the club our size and reputation doesn't have a striker that is even half good as any striker we have had in the past. It's such a poor attacking unit.

Anyway, more than the result the performance left me disappointed a lot more. Hopefully, we will perform much better in the next two games and go with much more confidence to the Etihad the Sunday after next. Any kind of positive result in that game could be huge for our season.

I agree, we don't need to pretend that it was a really promising performance. I think some criticism is fair but given the context of how long he's been in charge and the opposition it's understandable why he approached the game this way, even if was very safe. In terms of defensive structure, we saw some positives yesterday, so there's something to take away but not a great deal.

 

[SirAF]

1) its arsenal away
2) we usually don't get toe to toe with title contenders. They needed set pieces to break thru.
3) its his 3rd game which he started midseason. We have players out, prima donnas and rashfords.
4) we been crap and low on confidence for months prior. Under coached or over coached for years.
5) never once during the game i worried this going to be 5-0 humiliation. That's a major progress since ETH.

If you dont see the progress or the positives i dont know what to tell you. It's not cowardly, it's how you approach a top 2 side at home being a clear underdog. Even SAF does that at time. FFS

Absolutely bang on! I'm actually *very* optimistic by what I saw last night. The first half was, particularly, impressive. The shape of the team, retaining the ball and being disciplined. Imagine what Amorim can do after coaching his system for about six months plus hopefully a couple of high quality additions. The most sensible thing we, as fans, can do is to treat the rest of the season as a long pre-season for 2025/26.

 

[Devil81]

Found the rotation too much last night, I get he's putting trust in players who should be delivering but I didn't expect Amad and Rashford to be rotated after the weekend.

 

[HookedOnAPhelan]

I don't think there were, maybe some small minority that are never happy with anything. Liverpool were improving gradually and noticeably from the moment he joined, I think we will follow the same pattern under Amorim.

They had a shocking run in January and February 2017, a year and a half into his reign. 1-3-3 in the league, losing to Swansea, Hull and Leicester, and 2-4-6 in total, crashing out of both domestic cups to Soton and Wolves. Remember the Liverpool fans being very unhappy around that time. But they mobilized and managed to finish 4th by the skin of their teeth.

 

[saik]

You said that it was an instructional thing from the coaching staff, whereas I'm saying we simply don't have the quality in the final third with that starting XI to really threaten teams/get into dangerous positions/be clever on the ball. Amorim even said our attacking play wasn't good and not brave enough, but the players that were out there simply were never going to be able to do so. Do we really think Garnacho is going to dance between the lines and thread balls into Hojlund? Is Hojlund going to be able to hold up the ball under pressure from Saliba and find runs beyond him? Is Malacia going to play passes into the runners in the half spaces for crossing opportunities?

I just fundamentally disagree that it was a blatant approach to not attack Arsenal and just keep the ball away. I think Amorim hammers on the team to stop treating the ball like a bomb and look to probe for openings in a smart way, but many of these players aren't clever enough to pull it off if it's not a direct straightforward idea, so instead they chose to play it safer and keep possession (which isn't a bad thing) but it ultimately amounted to nothing because no one could actually threaten Arsenal in the final third (which is bad).

It all comes down really to us needing a major upgrade in quality in the final third personnel wise.

You underrate the squad way too much in my opinion. Or rather overrate Arsenal quite a bit. They don't even need to do half of the things you've mentioned to attack.

If they've tried things and it didn't come off then I could say it was down to them being useless at it but they didn't even attempt to do anything and that's down to how the coach prepared them for the game in my opinion. There's bottom half teams who've had more of a go at Arsenal and I refuse to believe that our squad is worse than them.

And keep in mind Arsenal were missing White, Gabriel and Calafiori. Only Saliba was part of their first choice defence. And we barely worked them. We had zero corners all game, barely threatened to put in a cross(surely crossing isn't hard when we were position to do so multiple times), had no one in the box apart from Hojlund multiple times. It was all way too negative.

 

[Shinjch]

I'm not going to hold too much of this season against him. I don't want to see us going and signing players from his previous club at in the next windows though. I want to see the club building towards a plan that is clear to see and the football moving in the right direction.

Still think the most important part is getting some of the current squad out the door.

 

[saik]

You didn't watch the game did you? Plenty of attacking moments simply broke down due to the quality of the players we had in those areas. Either due to lack of being technically good enough or looking a bit scared.

The reaction to last night has shined a massive light on the negative and clueless.

I watched and if one or two players were doing it then I'd say it was down to quality. Not when everyone was doing it. Everyone from Garnacho, Malacia, Bruno, Mount, Dalot refuse to get near the box or try to put in a cross to the point where we ended the game with zero corners. They might not be good but they are good enough to atleast give a little bit of trouble to what was effectively Arsenal's 2nd choice back four outside of Saliba.

And no need with those insults just because some posters have a different view to you. Nobody expected us to win, I didn't either, it was effectively a free hit game and we were ultra defensive rather than having a go even when we had the opportunity to do so.

 

[Zed 101]

TBH my only concern with the game were the pointed shots of Amorim with his head in his hands as if this was a massive disaster and the weight of the world on his shoulders, I wanted to just let him know that we are all behind him and to shake it off

 

[RuudTom83]

A 2-0 defeat away to Arsenal is a result the squad and fans can get over fairly quickly.

It’s the bonkers 5-0 and 7-0 battering that leave scars.

So no need to overreact or dwell on it for to long, just get ready for the weekend.

 

[Maagge]

Yup. That’s my take too. First half was a legitimately good to very good performance against the strongest opposition we’re likely to play in any given season.

Arsenal did up their game after half time but Amorin also decided to go for it with his substitutions. The plan was to obviously take the game to them and push for a win. That plan backfired but I admire the ambition almost as much as the way we neutralised them up until the point we decided to take a big risk and go for the three points.

Yeah we were quite clearly in control although a bit toothless in that first half. You could tell Arsenal and their supporters were getting frustrated. We played more pragmatically but without abandoning Amorim's system.

I can't get my head around the negativity we're already seeing on here. Were people really expecting us to just go away to Arsenal and win after three weeks with the new manager?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Yeah we were quite clearly in control although a bit toothless in that first half. You could tell Arsenal and their supporters were getting frustrated. We played more pragmatically but without abandoning Amorim's system.

I can't get my head around the negativity we're already seeing on here. Were people really expecting us to just go away to Arsenal and win after three weeks with the new manager?

"people" are often idiots. That's been established for a long time on here.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

TBH my only concern with the game were the pointed shots of Amorim with his head in his hands as if this was a massive disaster and the weight of the world on his shoulders, I wanted to just let him know that we are all behind him and to shake it off

I reckon he was just thinking "why can't any of these wankers get their head to a corner?!".

 

[horsechoker]

"people" are often idiots. That's been established for a long time on here.

 

[RedRocket9908]

To compare is to Stoke or Burnley after how we lost that game is a bit funny. DNA talk is tragic too.

I genuinely feel a bit bad for those who seemingly have zero patience.

Ive never seen a Man Utd team go in to a game and be clearly playing for a 0-0 draw from the first kick of the game with no desire to attack and almost every pass throughout the first half being played backwards in to our own half.

The 2nd half we were a bit better but still too defensive.

In honesty if I wouldnt have minded losing 2-0 to Arsenal if we had have played good attacking football but we didnt, I still fully back Ruben and will give him time but it that what we saw yesterday is how he thinks a club like ours should be setup and playing he is at the wrong club and wont last long in the job.

 

[rooneyberbatov]

I was surprised when we hired him. I didn’t know much about him. But I have to say, listening to him speak is refreshing compared to other managers. He’s candid and it looks like he has a hands-on approach that is necessary in this line of work.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Ive never seen a Man Utd team go in to a game and be clearly playing for a 0-0 draw from the first kick of the game with no desire to attack and almost every pass throughout the first half being played backwards in to our own half.

The 2nd half we were a bit better but still too defensive.

In honesty if I wouldnt have minded losing 2-0 to Arsenal if we had have played good attacking football but we didnt, I still fully back Ruben and will give him time but it that what we saw yesterday is how he thinks a club like ours should be setup and playing he is at the wrong club and wont last long in the job.

This is such a wildly inaccurate description of what actually happened.

As for the second half being “a bit better”. Wow.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

I watched and if one or two players were doing it then I'd say it was down to quality. Not when everyone was doing it. Everyone from Garnacho, Malacia, Bruno, Mount, Dalot refuse to get near the box or try to put in a cross to the point where we ended the game with zero corners. They might not be good but they are good enough to atleast give a little bit of trouble to what was effectively Arsenal's 2nd choice back four outside of Saliba.

And no need with those insults just because some posters have a different view to you. Nobody expected us to win, I didn't either, it was effectively a free hit game and we were ultra defensive rather than having a go even when we had the opportunity to do so.

I don't believe the squad is good overall, and it's certainly not Amorim's squad. So, i'm willing to cut him some slack until he figures it out. More so, if he keeps trying to get his message through to the players and implement his system, instead of giving in to the need to get temporary good results to "salvage" the season. We've been there under both Solskjaer and ETH, it's a road that leads to nowhere in this age of over-coached sides.

Having said that, the strife for positivity turning into the "cult of the manager" is a real thing on here. For the most part, you are correct about yesterday. We finished the game with 10 touches in the opposition box. Until Dalot's shot, late in the first half, we had two touches in their box: A backward pass from Hojlund and a blocked cross from Garnacho, both on the edge of the box and (harmlessly) wide. If that's a "good" first half performance, i don't (want to) know what a bad one looks like. You don't expect to see a plethora of touches between the lines, either, but our map was a barren wasteland. But, apparently, scoring from corners is small-time for a "big" club. All in all, your eyes didn't deceive you.

The first half, for me, was more strange than good. I believe Arteta expected Amad and Rashford to start in counter-attacking tactics, with Zirkzee looking for pockets of space between the lines. They never overcommitted to the high press, and Rice was being very cautious with his movement/passes. I don't know why Arsenal didn't change their tactics during the half. A guess would be that Amorim is still an unknown quantity to the opposition, who wait to see how he will approach the particularities of the English game. We were in a relatively good position because Arsenal (who are years into Arteta's project) were refusing to call our "bluff". It was a false sense of control because, after the half-time talk, Arsenal took the initiative, stepped up a gear, and you could see their goal coming. And when it finally came, we never showed that we could move up a few gears ourselves. But it's still early days. If, by this time next season, we are still producing these types of performances, then we should be concerned. But it was always going to be a bumpy ride.

 

[quadrant]

If it was not set pieces done us, and got a result his first half tactics would have been hailed as the best of best.

Given the situation of our squad, , he approached the match in right way(I know its not we want but sometimes we need to apply common sense),
bad luck we didn't build on in 2nd half but I think we will improve massively under Ruben in coming months.

Leaving entertainment aside, 1st half display was the most assured display we put up over the years.

It was defensive play, done the right way. Not by packing the box and clearing crosses, but by using possession to manage the game. This alone pleased me enormously, since controlled possession has been a chronic weakness of ours since Jose took over. It was part of the reason why we would consistently concede at just the wrong time under ETH, because when the opposition's tail was up, we'd keep handing the ball back to them to have another go. So we'd concede two in a few minutes, or just after half time, or in stoppage time. The ability to retain & recycle the ball is an important platform in big games.

 

[Hoof the ball]

 

[RedRocket9908]

This is such a wildly inaccurate description of what actually happened.

As for the second half being “a bit better”. Wow.

Its not inaccurate at all, its exactly what happened

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Its not inaccurate at all, its exactly what happened

Nonsense.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Is “football IQ” the new “zombie passing”?

 

[FrankDrebin]

All happened in the 2nd half where we lost our composure and heads.

 

[wolvored]

Lets be realistic here: We are a top 6-8 team standard team with this squad. Amorim wont make a silk purse out of a sows ear with these players. He will coach them better than they are and get them fitter, but wont turn Hojlund into Haaland, Rashford into Salah and Bruno into Odegaard. The club will have to let him have the time like Arteta and let him replace all the players he wants to.
He has proven he is a top manager and I hope this doesnt affect him where he abandons his principles, like TH did. He has got a proper team above him now and I am hopeful they will back him to the hilt.

 

[Santoryo]

This video has more to do with poor execution than poor IQ. Words like IQ and such are often used as buzzwords in the wrong context and this tweet is illustration to that.

 

[Zed is not dead]

Found the rotation too much last night, I get he's putting trust in players who should be delivering but I didn't expect Amad and Rashford to be rotated after the weekend.

He said he wants to manage fitness.

It’s also understandable that his game plan was to start more defensive, hence Malacia and Dalot on the sides during first half

 

[Licha-Vidic]

Some clear explanation on rest defence, which we were imperious in yesterday.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Why are people upset over the result? What were you expecting with these group of players? I’ll reserve my judgement of the manager until he has a few more games under his belt.

Hopefully the top 4/5 talk will also calm down as it’s a bit of a joke.

How? We are 4 points off having played absolutely terribly. Pool, Arsenal, Chelsea and City will be the top four in whatever order but, after that, we really should be pushing Brighton/Forest/Villa etc. even with the issues in the team.

 

[saik]

I don't believe the squad is good overall, and it's certainly not Amorim's squad. So, i'm willing to cut him some slack until he figures it out. More so, if he keeps trying to get his message through to the players and implement his system, instead of giving in to the need to get temporary good results to "salvage" the season. We've been there under both Solskjaer and ETH, it's a road that leads to nowhere in this age of over-coached sides.

Having said that, the strife for positivity turning into the "cult of the manager" is a real thing on here. For the most part, you are correct about yesterday. We finished the game with 10 touches in the opposition box. Until Dalot's shot, late in the first half, we had two touches in their box: A backward pass from Hojlund and a blocked cross from Garnacho, both on the edge of the box and (harmlessly) wide. If that's a "good" first half performance, i don't (want to) know what a bad one looks like. You don't expect to see a plethora of touches between the lines, either, but our map was a barren wasteland. But, apparently, scoring from corners is small-time for a "big" club. All in all, your eyes didn't deceive you.

The first half, for me, was more strange than good. I believe Arteta expected Amad and Rashford to start in counter-attacking tactics, with Zirkzee looking for pockets of space between the lines. They never overcommitted to the high press, and Rice was being very cautious with his movement/passes. I don't know why Arsenal didn't change their tactics during the half. A guess would be that Amorim is still an unknown quantity to the opposition, who wait to see how he will approach the particularities of the English game. We were in a relatively good position because Arsenal (who are years into Arteta's project) were refusing to call our "bluff". It was a false sense of control because, after the half-time talk, Arsenal took the initiative, stepped up a gear, and you could see their goal coming. And when it finally came, we never showed that we could move up a few gears ourselves. But it's still early days. If, by this time next season, we are still producing these types of performances, then we should be concerned. But it was always going to be a bumpy ride.

Completely agree on your point about it being a false sense of control and I've said something similar. That control is meaningless as we did nothing with it and Arsenal were only too happy to allow us to do that.

I don't mind us losing this game. It was always very hard to win away against Arsenal. My issue was with the performance and how we set up so negatively to start the game. I wouldnt call it pragmatic either as if it was pragmatic we would have pursued some of the opportunities we had to attack in the first half.

Longer term I hope we don't approach these games so negatively. Not when the opposition is missing 3/4 of their first choice defence.

 

[Solius]

Some of these are more examples or poor execution rather than poor footballing IQ. Some of them are also where the player would have to pull off an incredible pass to either pull it off or aren't even heading towards that direction due to pressure. It isn't like fifa where you can just ping a ball out to the free man no matter your body shape or whether you're being pressurised.

Not saying better decisions couldn't have been made, but it's a bit misleading.

 

[sugar_kane]

So when do we expect the player briefings against him to begin and what content we talking?

The formation will be a theme doubtless, him being 'too honest' with the media, players not being allowed on holiday during international breaks, we'll probably get a wild card as well like him not doing enough fitness training vs. the old regime.

 

[saivet]

This video has more to do with poor execution than poor IQ. Words like IQ and such are often used as buzzwords in the wrong context and this tweet is illustration to that.

Yeah, a lot of those actions were the right thing to do just poorly executed. It wasn't ridiculous decision making costing us in the video.

 

[TheRedHearted]

Think we all need to strap in for the rough ride. We’re gonna lose a hell of a lot of games this season. We’ve got city and Liverpool away in the next month and as hard as it is people are going to have to dissociate the emotional attachment to these games. Dunno about anyone else but I wasn’t particularly bothered about last night. At the very least we were competitive and solid in open play. But there was literally no way in hell we were ever winning that game.

Amorim for me has the hardest job of any manager post Fergie. Ten Hag has left him with the worse squad we’ve ever had, full of chancers and the most unathletic group of players you’ll ever see.
If he wants to give everyone an audition over these next few months great. Sink or swim.
He’s also playing a completely different system, one these players have very little experience with, so again it’s going to be very rough.
It’d be hard enough with a good group of players. He’s got plenty bad eggs in there.

So then goal is to keep us in premier league while offloading many of the “worse squad we’ve ever had”.

Same for next season as well. We sell as many in the summer and bring in young hungry talent and prospects. As long as we don’t get relegated we build for the future

 

[343]

I'm not sure I would even say that.

Their goals came from 2 corners which 1 of the goals gets flagged for a push in the back 9 times out of 10 if the player getting pushed doesn't play for Manchester United and the other goal came from a corner that shouldn't have even happened and came from Rashford making a meal out of possesing the ball

Yes, it is amazing the amount of incidents that are brushed under the carpet when United are involved. I was almost wishing Amorim would mention it post-match, but it is probably too early for him to go picking fights. Once he gets his house in order, he will need to kick up a fuss over such things.

Having said that, we did look vulnerable from Arsenal's corners in the first half as well. They are rather good at it, whipping the balls in with pace in a stark contrast to how we do it.