Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach

Was pleased to see the level of control increase dramatically in his opening games, but there's not been any improvement on that, we've actually been playing poorly since.

It's fine having a preferred system but you have to be able to adapt to be a good football manager in my opinion, and he's not doing that at the moment. His preferred system clearly isn't working due to the quality of players at his disposal, lack of training time, or both.

He's had enough time to see the system in action with most of the players fielded and it's not working. You can't then just keep playing it and losing or drawing in the same manner every game, that's the same madness we were raging with Ten Hag for.

I'm not for one second saying Ruud was the answer, and the teams we played during his short stint weren't the most difficult, but he did seem to pick sensible options that suited the players and the games and we got some decent results even if the football wasn't greatly improved. There's something to be said for that.

You only have to look at what's happened to City to see the outcome if you don't change a system that isn't working, and that's with a great squad and supposedly the best manager. Refusal to adapt your approach is not a great trait for a football manager.
 
Roboc7 said:
He’s only been here a short period of time, we have years worth of performances from the players that show they aren’t up to the job. They are the fundamental problem and no manager will change that.
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But not the one guy who was singled out and booed off.
 
Rex Banner said:
He's making a mistake in being so dogmatic with the formation/system and I think unless he realises it and changes tack, there's a good chance he won't be here next season.

I understand that people are worried about him doing a Ten Hag and going against his principles, but for me, they're two different situations.

Ten Hag had the benefit of a full pre-season and his own signings. Amorim doesn't have any of that. He's come in mid season, with none of his own players and is trying to implement a system that is totally alien to this squad. There's nothing wrong with being pragmatic and trying to buy yourself some time when the odds are completely stacked against you.

The team is a shambles and if he wants to make it to pre-season and get a proper crack at the job, then he needs to change.
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I agree with this. But i just wonder what sign it sends when he reverses course? Even if it is just until the end of the season.

Maybe the message cant be worse than losing every game.
 
Ayoba said:
I'm genuinely worried. I see no hope, I think we're in serious danger to get relegated :(
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I don't think we've got the determination needed to get relegated. Everton have actively been trying for about five years now and just can't manage it.
 
Ayoba said:
I'm genuinely worried. I see no hope, I think we're in serious danger to get relegated :(
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No. We're bad but we're not that bad. Probably need another 15 points in the second half of the season to ensure safety. Surely we can manage that?

If we lose to Southampton in a couple of weeks though... then it's time to panic.
 
The thing with Ruben's "system" is that it isn't some magic way to win — it's just a football formation like any other. I don't know why we're so obsessed with one system at the expense of all others if it doesn't suit the squad.

And if we're planning on selling most of our current players anyway, who the hell cares if they learn a new system this season? They won't be here to play it in future anyway.
 
kouroux said:
Maybe so but it wasn't this bad under any other formation. At the moment we are bleeding out, maybe we should try something to mitigate it ?
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It was far worse under ten Hag. Now we are largely playing OK but getting done on set pieces and or through moments of individual stupidity.

Under EtH we had teams like Luton, Brentford and Palace having 20+ shots on goal against us and running through at will.

Team selection massively wrong tonight and he needs to learn fast but anything else is unwarranted hysteria
 
Can he start being more flexible with his system? I know it’s not a solution in the long term but the performances have been miserable and it doesn’t look like things are improving. Don’t fold but adjust.
 
I don't want a ban so I'll keep it short, we have to beat Southampton convincingly on the 16th or Amorim is done. We are in a relegation scrap.
 
gaffs said:
Big Amorim supporter here, but it is clear that he doesnt have the players at his disposal to play his desired system. No wing backs. No centre backs with recovery pace that are comfortable playing a high line. No 10s that can move with the ball and no forward that can link up play.

What is he trying to achieve? This lot can barely play in a 433, so how are they ever going to pick up a 3421? It is leaving us short in the midfield because the wing backs are reverting to a back 5.
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The good managers adapt their philosophy when needed to get results. I’m not saying he abandon the 3-4-3 but clearly it isn’t working in its current form and got exposed today.
 
Lay said:
Majority of these players can't play any system. We have a slow, unathletic side. What manager will come in and be able to play their style? Especially as everyone now plays in a particular way
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I'm not saying it's an easy job, but its never going to be. The squad has obvious flaws, but we appear to be playing exactly as bad as we were under ETH and he was deemed not good enough. I know he had longer with the players and they were mostly signed by him, so he should take more of the blame for the situation, but it will still be concerning if we get to the end of the season and there is no improvement whatsoever. I agree it's a poor squad, but I find it hard to believe no one could find a system with it which wouldn't look better than this.
 
RedCafe - we must rip-up EtHs work and start again, it'll be painful but it needs to be done and we'll support Amorim through it

RedCafe when we lose a few games - his system doesn't work and he needs to go
 
gaffs said:
I agree with this. But i just wonder what sign it sends when he reverses course? Even if it is just until the end of the season.

Maybe the message cant be worse than losing every game.
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It would signal that we are in panic mode and that anything that can be used, will be used to end the season with some form of dignity
 
It's understandable that he needs his players to play his style of play well. But this when we want to go a few level up to, say, challenge Top 4/5 or PL tiltles. As of now, any good manager should improve this team and at least implement a clear style of play. He needs results to get him more time. No ifs or buts, he has failed badly so far and questions need to be asked.
 
Why play Dalot, who is predominatly a right sided player, on the left? Why play an ageing Eriksen and utterly over the hill Casemiro together in midfield, when neither of them have had any minutes in weeks? Why not start Mainoo and Yoro? Why constantly change the defence, with a different lineup each game and then mutliple changes per game? Why include Rashford in the squad but then leave him on bench when we desperately need a goal yet Hojlund, who is utter garbage, gets to play the whole game?

Why Ruben? WHY?
 
Raoul said:
Amorim has won two leagues to Slot's one. The difference between the two is the former inherited a broken club in transition, whilst the latter was handed a club in relatively good shape.
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I agree they are two completely different realities, but it doesn't automatically mean that Ruben should have us in this mess either losing three home games on the trot. He still needs to get results to earn the trust of both fans and the board going into next season. Otherwise what was the point in bringing him in mid season?
 
Yakuza_devils said:
Even he came in mid season is not the excuses to perform so poorly. We didn't expect him to get Top 4/5. We just want some decent style of play. This is not too much to ask from a good manager. But so far he is worse than ETH. Even RVN was better.
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His style when performed properly is fast and exciting, the problem is we have no technicality what so ever it’s a team built on a counter attacking transition

This mix of mediocre players, some out of position is going to struggle

We need to do everything we can to get him a couple of players in January it could make a huge difference
 
Crashoutcassius said:
Of course but we have to get away from the idea of managers signing players or bringing in 'their' players.
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It wont happen anymore with a proper structure in place. Not sure what happened this summer but maybe they went all in on supporting ten Hag after him signing an extension to make it work. They have learned their lesson. But they know 3-4-2-1 is the way forward so they have find wingbacks and midfielders to suit the role. So the manager will be involved in discussions but they wont say yes to everyone he wants to sign.
 
TwoSheds said:
So is he any good? It's got to be one of the worst starts ever of any of our managers that's for sure.
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Of course he is good.

The issue is that he has been dealt 7,2 off suite and he is not willing to fold.

You can look up and down our squad and there are very few players you want to build a team around. Maybe Mainoo is the only one. Our highest paid players, Case, Bruno, Rashford, Antony and Maguire are some of or biggest issues.
 
I cannot believe that we've hired two managers in a row who has a fanciful Plan A for the long term that requires half a billion of investment (with no guarantee it will work) but absolutely zero Plan B to work with the squad we currently have for the short-term.

Yes, it's not a great squad and are nowhere close in quality to the top 4. But 5 defeats out of 6? Come on man.
 
Anfield is going to be a massacre. I completely understand that Amorim came into a shit storm, the fixture list is very unforving and the schedule a nightmare but surely, even for him, he had to know that Casemiro and Eriksen wouldn't stand a chance against Newcastle, he had to know that Dalot and Maz as wingbacks is bunting our attack and that Hoijlund and Zirkzee are just horrible. How does he justify fielding them?

I like him, will give him the benefit of the doubt but, I have said this early on in this thread, not playing the youth will sink him. By the time the summer window arrives, and that's only where he will get significant reinforcements, he would have lost credibility if not his job. So get creative, be brave and start playing the youth who have something to prove.
 
Lentwood said:
It was far worse under ten Hag. Now we are largely playing OK but getting done on set pieces and or through moments of individual stupidity.

Under EtH we had teams like Luton, Brentford and Palace having 20+ shots on goal against us and running through at will.

Team selection massively wrong tonight and he needs to learn fast but anything else is unwarranted hysteria
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I am talking about ETH in this 24/25 season.
Don't get me wrong, he was deservedly sacked. I just don't like the idea of our manager being stubborn to stick with something that ain't working. We tore ETH for being extremely stubborn, I don't want Amorim to go down that route
 
Lentwood said:
RedCafe - we must rip-up EtHs work and start again, it'll be painful but it needs to be done and we'll support Amorim through it

RedCafe when we lose a few games - his system doesn't work and he needs to go
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Playing devils advocate here... if we keep losing 2 or 3 nil every single week there has to come a point where the manager is called into question.

Put it this way, if come the end of the season we're 15th or lower then I think it might be worth reviewing other options.
 
DSG said:
Wow. Relegation?

I don’t think the squad is bad enough to be relegated, but we are truly shit right now
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The squad doesnt relegate you results do. Doesn't matter how good we think certain players are if the team keeps losing 6 games a month we are going down.
We are going 1 way at the moment and there is absolutely zero sign right now that there is anything going to halt that.
The comfort blanket that ‘the squad is too good to go down’ or the blind assumption that ‘this will all improve at some point’ is very shaky foundations to build a case against relegation on.
 
Lentwood said:
RedCafe - we must rip-up EtHs work and start again, it'll be painful but it needs to be done and we'll support Amorim through it

RedCafe when we lose a few games - his system doesn't work and he needs to go
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There's losing a few games and then there's losing 6 games out of 11, including 4 in a row.
 
Lentwood said:
RedCafe - we must rip-up EtHs work and start again, it'll be painful but it needs to be done and we'll support Amorim through it

RedCafe when we lose a few games - his system doesn't work and he needs to go
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Are you okay with relegation?
 
As far as the League is concerned I think January is key:

Liverpool
Southampton
Brighton
Fulham

Lose all of them and there's no saving him.

Will also probably be out of the FA Cup.

Carragher slaughtering Amorim on MNF at the moment.
 
Shark said:
I agree they are two completely different realities, but it doesn't automatically mean that Ruben should have us in this mess either losing three home games on the trot. He still needs to get results to earn the trust of both fans and the board going into next season. Otherwise what was the point in bringing him in mid season?
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I agree that he shouldn't have been brought in mid-season, but I'm assuming Berrada got wind City may have been sniffing around as a potential Pep replacement and decided to move quickly.

Ten Hag should've obviously been sacked at seasons end and given the new manager an entire summer to build his squad with new players and not buy dross like Zirkzee.
 
Roboc7 said:
What’s your point?
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That somehow we've seen enough of Zirkzee to decide that he's not worthy of playing for Utd, based on performances in a squad widely acknowledged to be shit, under a terrible manager in ETH and now, a new manager to the league. At the same time, even mentioning the possibility that Amorim may not be astute enough in a league as challenging as the PL, is basically blasphemous.
 
VP89 said:
The Dalot experiment is particularly infuriating. Hes so obviously bad in that role.
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We don’t generally agree on a lot @VP89 but I appreciate your measured approach here. Dang, sometimes I hate the hold this club has on me.

Hope for Amorim. But we need to move past the “savior” idea. I genuinely believe that Rangnick couldn’t fix us and ETH was out of his depth and tactically inept. I don’t have many arguments left, sadly.

Sigh. We sucked today v Newcastle.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
The thing with Ruben's "system" is that it isn't some magic way to win — it's just a football formation like any others. I don't know why we're so obsessed with one system at the expense of all others if it doesn't suit the squad.

And if we're planning on selling most of our current players anyway, who the hell cares if they learn a new system this season? They won't be here to play it in future anyway.
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The point is to see who can actually contribute going forward into next season and who isn’t good enough.

I’m not sure what the answer is currently. In a vacuum, sure we sell 10 players from this squad and make massive upgrades in the squad for next year. But just losing every game isn’t the best way right now either. However, I also don’t want to just go for Ole counter ball again either.


I said it when we hired him and it’s proving true, but the biggest issue right now is we essentially have 0 quality in attack apart from Amad (which teams have now figured out and are doubling up on him). When you can’t score/create/present danger consistently, it becomes incredibly tough to get results even if as a coach you are doing everything right. It’s even harder when the squad is learning a new system
 
Yagami said:
You've said nothing wrong so don't worry. Most of us know this squad is diabolical.

People keep saying he needs to change things up. No system is getting the best out of this squad because it's rubbish. Plain and simple.


We don't have the players for any formation.
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Of course we do. Even just a decent coach like EtH managed 3rd place just 2 seasons ago, after he ditched his early attempts of changing the way we should play too much, and just tried to get the most out of the players at hand.
Ruud is most probably a worse coach then both EtH and Ruben and these very same players looked much better the few games he was in charge.

Ruben is trying something new that just doesn`t seem to suit our players at all. He has indicated that he is very stubborn and will never change his fundamentals. But here we are. We look just as awful as last seasons car crashes of performances against Brentford and Palace, and are now dangerously close to a relegation fight and i don`t think anyone is accepting going down.
Keeping Sporting up the table while he was doing the revolution there was one thing. The Portuguese league is not nearly as strong. He needs to play something that suits the players at hand better fairly soon. Something has to give.
 
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