Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach

RopersReturn said:
Perhaps the biggest single contributor to our current situation was down to Woodward very generously extending the contracts of some bang average players.
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Yep and the owners didn't give a feck either. Makes me think of players like Alexis Sanchez on 500K per week that added sweet feck all to the squad as another major feck up.

Just excellence in failure all around from the United hierarchy for more than a decade.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
I said he needs to stop being a coward and play wingers rather than defenders at wing back.

I think there’s much braver choices that need to be made with team selection if he insists on his preferred formation…

There, hopefully that sits with you a little better and doesn’t get you so wound up.
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As I said you were way more wound up than me mate :lol:
 
witchtrials said:
Agree he had us looking better than most - but couldn't see him winning the league with us in a hundred years.
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well 81 being 9 points off 90, which is the kind of point tally where we won the league with fergie many times, wasn't that far off. I thought a good window then might've done it. Instead we got a Jose meltdown because of the whole Pogba/martial not being sold situation.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’m putting it down to Bruno and Ugarte being unavailable and Mainoo playing shite in the last match he started. I mean, we’re not exactly spoilt for choice in central midfield, are we?
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But we’ve seen Mainoo is our best CM, even if a player was bad last match. You look at the bigger picture and choose the one with the right profile.
 
@sammyhol
Has said this

  • 4141 got us 8th and 10th or whatever it was
  • 4231 got us 3rd, a cup, another final, a European quarter, an elite looking Casemiro and Martinez, a hyper creative Bruno, and 30 goal scoring rashford.
  • It really does my head in when people pretend that there wasn’t a massive systematic change between ETH system in season 1, and the 18 months that followed.
  • Had he had stuck with the season 1 principles, traditional overlapping FBs, mid-block defence, and counter centred attacking, rather than the kamikaze stuff he tried to implement… we would have finished far better in the subsequent seasons.
  • This squad was built for 4231… ETH tried to change that too quickly. Amorim is doing the exact same thing.
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Bolded part reinforced.


Now we will spend alot of money just to return to 3rd position. A position we were in May 2023.
And On this weekend in 2021, we were joint Top of The League with Ole.

As you can see, we have compounded our problems immensely. Getting back to the position we were ( top 4 team) will cost us huge amount of money

1. Because Amorim won't change anything.
2. Amorim wants specific players who will play specifically how he wants.
3. 95% of the players are not comfortable in this setup, so we need new players.


And this is not a guarantee we will win..
 
santeria13 said:
well 81 being 9 points off 90, which is the kind of point tally where we won the league with fergie many times, wasn't that far off. I thought a good window then might've done it. Instead we got a Jose meltdown because of the whole Pogba/martial not being sold situation.
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Yeah might have been able to finish first against Pellegrini or similar but never looked like he had a hope against Guardiola in his pomp. He was already last year's man.
 
crossy1686 said:
Bruno and Ugarte were suspended. Who was he supposed to play? Zirkzee came off for Mainoo
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Yeah we really didn’t have options there. I can’t stress enough to people how terrible this squad really is. It’s just getting exposed now that the tactics aren’t just chaos ball or Ole/counter ball.

Ugarte is our only source of athleticism in midfield. Amad is the only dangerous player we have in attack. In a combined Newcastle/United XI we probably contribute 4 players total (Maz, Amad, Onana, and a CB). Not to mention we have 0 depth
 
Be interesting to see us in 2/3 weeks time. There is a run of 3 home games (Southampton, Brighton, Rangers) where we can hopefully put a run together.

Don't expect anything at Anfield or Emirates

 
I'm worried now. At some point the players will lose trust and stop even trying to implement the tactics as they want to be winning games. Probably not far off, then it's only a matter of time before a sack.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Did you not watch the Wolves match?
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One match. Yet Casemiro and Eriksen have had the same no legs issue for a season and a half.

90% of things we can’t blame the manager for. But today he has to be accountable for that. I love the guy’s personality, can see the improvements, I know most of things have been beyond his control, but it’s been enough matches where team selection errors are on him.
 
The Firestarter said:
That doesn't sound that great to be honest. I appreciate that he's very blunt but...he's just admitting he's extremely dogmatic.
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I think he's just convinced that's the right way to go and he probably knows half the team is too shite regardless of system for where the club actually wants to get. And when I say half the team, I mean three quarters. When he says he doesn't have another idea I think he's politely saying "you are the fourth so-called journalist asking me this in 5 minutes, why don't you go feck yourself" but I could be wrong : )

The higher-ups need to support him properly in January and for the rest of the season. First order of business is get out the players he deems least fitting/most troublesome, whether on-loan, early termination if their contracts are running out, or sold permanently. Clear the air.

He'll obviously need a left wing-back, but I'd suggest he'll need another #10 too, even if it's just on loan.
 
Licha-Vidic said:
OK remove Peps team

What about Klopp 90+ point teams.

Arteta teams.

Madrid domination in UCL has been through 433. Cas, Modric, Kross

Even the Barca of Xavi, Iniesta and Busquest was a 3 midfield team.
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There are managers who deploy this tactic who have had success/been considered to be at the top of the game - Tuchel, Conte, Nagelsmann come to mind
 
RuudTom83 said:
The joys of being Man United manager...the pressure is growing rapidly on Amorim.

But at some point you want it to dawn on the players that they are the issue, and just because they wear the shirt doesn't make them great players.

They start each game as if everything is fine. Giving simple goals away every game. But the manager plays 3 at the back and has disciplined Marcus Rashford so that's 2 excuses for them to pick from.
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The players are undoubtedly an issue and are not good enough for the club but they are also being set up to fail by this system just as they were in Ten Hag's system.
 
Blood Mage said:
The players are undoubtedly an issue and are not good enough for the club but they are also being set up to fail by this system just as they were in Ten Hag's system.
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No Ten Hag made a bastardized ping pong system to fit the players. That's why they are so shite now.
 
I was very optimistic when he was appointed (although Iraola would have been my choice), but it's becoming clear that he's not a good fit for this squad, and as we're effectively skint, I'm concerned about where we're going to end up.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That’s nonsense. Form matters.
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Mainoo had had too much burden and far too much game time thrust upon him for his age. Happened with Garnacho too, and we are seeing the same with Diallo now, the situation just drags these young prospects into the dust. And then the over exposure leads to criticism of their form and it becomes a big talking point when they are dropped, rather than the right thing to do - just ease them out of the spotlight for a bit.

Problem is for us is that we have absolute joke senior players - you have to swap the youngsters who shouldn't have that burden out for Casemiro, Eriksen, Antony and Rashford and the like.

Does any other top club have this problems where they have senior players paid Hundreds of thousands a week who are so unbelievably bad and uninterested that they have to make the youngest squad players play 50 games a season whilst the fat cats sit on the bench?
 
Berbaclass said:
We haven't been 'pumped' by anyone under Amorim.

Even tonight we were utter shit for 30 mins, he brings Mainoo on and the game was pretty even from that point. The scorelines don't always tell the story.
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If we're conceding 2/3/4 goals over multiple games in a short period whilst barely scoring, there's nothing good about that.

If you play well but lose a couple, that's normal. I was happy that we had more possession and apparent control in the first few games. That potential platform hasn't been built on though, we're still not scoring many and conceding loads of needless shitey goals. That's the only story that's important as we're not really controlling anything in that case.

I know it's very early days, and I think Amorim talks well and I hope he really can improve things. I'm a bit worried by what I'm seeing so far though, as soon as we had a remotely challenging run we've really struggled.
 
I like a coach with convictions but even Pep / Klopp had to adjust their methods in different leagues / teams.
 
I definitely don't want to see Casemiro and Eriksen together again and would like to see us try a winger at wing back but I'm still not convinced we wouldn't get battered by all these teams.

It's not just midfield where we're lacking physically, it's everywhere on the pitch. Just hope we get better as the fixture list gets a bit kinder.
 
So many teams are fast powerful and athletic now in the PL or at least have a sufficient players in their prime who are. We are slow, weak and lethargic. Pedestrian players at the end of their careers in midfield supplemented by still developing kids upfront who are lightweight and easily bullied, bypassed and pushed off the ball. Bad recruitment has led to this situation plain and simple. There are promising youngsters in the side and a great academy plus excellent young prospects being recruited there. The future looks brighter but short term I see nothing to disprove that mid table to Top 6 is the very best we can expect Amorim or not...
 
We've basically brought in a manager who needs money to be spent in order to successfully impose 'his system', at the same time the club has come out and said that we have no money to buy players. He needs something like a complete overhaul of the team, and we've got no money because Ten Hag spent it last summer.

If you're looking on the bright side, you need to ask yourself why at this point. Why the feck would you install a manager who will require a squad overhaul if you haven't got money to give him?

It would have made more sense just to keep Van Nistelrooij or find someone like Carrick and get the best out of the players. No wonder this guy looks completely shot already. We're so poorly run it's laughable.
 
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RDCR07 said:
Youre contracting yourself here. Youre saying confidence is huge but then we also need to be scoring to win games. Well when we condede first, due to individual errors, our confidence does go down even more. It is linked. Also with these smaller teams, its terrible to condede first cause they score and hit deep and try to hit us on the counter. If we reduce errors, we reducing conceding first and we are in games more often and we can try to score more often.
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I'm saying confidence is a huge part of doing well in top level sport and that confidence comes in the main from winning matches.

The point I'm trying to make is that even with five defenders on the pitch we're conceding a lot from bad mistakes and as you rightly point out, often conceding first. If we're going to be doing that, we need to be able to score a lot more goals to be able to outscore the opposition, and I don't feel we are using a set up that allows for that (nor do we have the quality in attack if we're honest), so we're on a bit of a hiding to nothing at the moment, and confidence is going to be worsening with every loss.
 
Rajma said:
I like a coach with convictions but even Pep / Klopp had to adjust their methods in different leagues / teams.
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They both didnt go from playing 5 at the back to playing with 4, which is what the cafe is asking Amorim to do.
 
I'll double down on this point.

He needs some positive results quick or he'll be gone by February.

He needs to he somewhat pragmatic when it comes to style of play and formation. The crowd is behind him but he probably has credit in the bank because of the city result. Heavy defeats in the next two and the crowd will turn.

These long term "project" type managers have always struggled because its such a results driven business that people don't really care about what happens in a few months never mind a few years.
 
AndyMUFC said:
I definitely don't want to see Casemiro and Eriksen together again and would like to see us try a winger at wing back but I'm still not convinced we wouldn't get battered by all these teams.

It's not just midfield where we're lacking physically, it's everywhere on the pitch. Just hope we get better as the fixture list gets a bit kinder.
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I dont think we are getting anywhere with this system without some new players and a pre season.

Personally I think we should go to a rigid back 4 sitting deep and then try to launch it in behind for Garnacho and Hojlund on the counter as well as allowing Bruno a bit more freedom. Its about all we’ve got the personnel for and negates a lot of the possession and running we cant do
 
The Firestarter said:
That doesn't sound that great to be honest. I appreciate that he's very blunt but...he's just admitting he's extremely dogmatic.
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What do you mean that doesnt sound great? He is being pragmatic not dogmatic. Jamie Jackson asked him this 5 at the back is not working so why not go 4 at the back to the old system? To which Ruben said if I dont have convictions in my own idea how am I sell this idea to the players? He also said these players were tailor made and hand picked for each position in the previous system of 4-2-3-1 even with 3 preseasons and 2 full season playing the same formation and they still lost games and thats why there was a coaching change in the first place.
 
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RDCR07 said:
They both didnt go from playing 5 at the back to playing with 4, which is what the cafe is asking Amorim to do.
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Pep definitely evolved with formations depending on players, while Klopp had a smooth transition to EPL so there was no need for him to change the underlying formation.
 
Wolfbot said:
I'm saying confidence is a huge part of doing well in top level sport and that confidence comes in the main from winning matches.

The point I'm trying to make is that even with five defenders on the pitch we're conceding a lot from bad mistakes and as you rightly point out, often conceding first. If we're going to be doing that, we need to be able to score a lot more goals to be able to outscore the opposition, and I don't feel we are using a set up that allows for that (nor do we have the quality in attack if we're honest), so we're on a bit of a hiding to nothing at the moment, and confidence is going to be worsening with every loss.
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We have no choice but to play out of this rough patch and be better. There is no point in bringing in a coach who plays like this and telling him to change his system. So if he changes to a 4-2-3-1, which btw he hasnt played before, and we continue to lose what then? Change back to 3 at the back or continue with 4 at the back?
 
The Firestarter said:
That doesn't sound that great to be honest. I appreciate that he's very blunt but...he's just admitting he's extremely dogmatic.
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It’s exactly what we have been crying out for as fans. To develop a system and an identity, not just to revert to type just because it suits the players we currently have.

We gave ETH shit for saying the opposite of Amorim in that he can’t play like he did with Ajax. Now we have got what we want and unfortunately it will take a lot of time before it works out.
 
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