Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach

RDCR07 said:
They want a manager who has never played a 4-4-3 to play that system. Somehow they have convinced themselves that if we played 4 at the back and with wingers we wont be in this position. Its as if they have short term memory loss and dont remember how shite we were the past 2 years under Ten Hag and the 10 years before that under different managers who all played 4 at the back. This past decade we were craving for managers to try something different and as one comes along, who btw knows what the feck he is doing, and tries something different, they go after him with a pitchfork asking him to revert back for MAYBE short term wins. Its still a maybe. There is no guarantee going to a back 4 will yield different results.
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Exactly this.
I have asked it many a time on this thread and no one has been able to point to how this formation or system is causing us to leak goals. The majority are down to individual mistakes. Yesterday, two crosses when we have 5 in the back line. Would removing a man from the back line help that?

The 433 v 3421 talk is so lazy too. Yes, some players may not currently be ideally suited to a 3421, but if Slot, Arteta, Klopp or Pep came in, would many of them be suited to their versions of a 433 ? Likely not, because the squad is just really poor, unfit and lacking confidence. Only time on the training ground, better players signed and a pre season will help this.

Said it before, but i think this team went without playing much of a system for the past few years. Ten Hag gave up and reverted to ad hoc football because of the pressure. Not fans want Amorim to drop his principles. That is why there was never any patterns of play under ETH. Their brains need to be re-wired to start taking instruction again and it will take time.
 
Dembeza said:
Does anyone have a link to the analysis that Carager did for the positioning of our wingbacks? Dalot in particular.

Found a tiktok video but it’s a short clip.

The video pretty much shows why we have been so poor going forward due to the positioning of our wingbacks.

Here is the TikTok clip :
Analysis
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It is here....


He is making the point that Dalot is too deep. And that may be true at times.

But i would suggest you also watch this video that points the the fact he is often too high up the field when in build up, therefore not allowing the space for the forward to peel off into....



And i think everyone should watch this to better understand how Sporting played under Amorim....

 
Pogue Mahone said:
So? The point is it can work. It’s also becoming more and more popular. Loads of teams use the formation now. Including the team with the longest unbeaten run in Europe over the last several years, Leverkusen. Tactics aren’t set in stone. They change. Wasn’t all that long ago it was seen as weird to not play 442.

At the end of the day it’s 11 vs 11. The idea that a specific formation can’t possibly work because of the geographical location of the league is just stupid.
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I admire your patience in the face of these shifting questions.

Name one example!

Now name twenty more!
 
honirelandboy said:
What was wrong with a Ugarte, Mainoo, Eriksen midfield yesterday? He is starting to fustrate me with this 3-4-3 formation. Might work in Portugal, won't work in England. He is in to get the best out of the current players that are at united and it's simply not working. He will be gone by end of February is my prediction.
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How did you watch the game and not know Ugarte was suspended? That actually tells me you didnt watch the game cause even commentators mentioned it quite a few times that him and Fernandes werent available. You are ignorant yet you blame Amorim for not playing a player who was suspended?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
So? The point is it can work. It’s also becoming more and more popular. Loads of teams use the formation now. Including the team with the longest unbeaten run in Europe over the last several years, Leverkusen. Tactics aren’t set in stone. They change. Wasn’t all that long ago it was seen as weird to not play 442.

At the end of the day it’s 11 vs 11. The idea that a specific formation can’t possibly work because of the geographical location of the league is just stupid.
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Well said.

There are some football luddites in here here.

Have they not noticed that teams like Arsenal or City may hand their team sheets in with their players in a 433, but their full back, or even a center back like Stones for City, will spend most of the game up with the midfield when in possession?

Modern football is about creating overloads and mismatches in areas of the field. If executed properly, Amorims system will do this.
 
It was obvious our lack of firepower with the disgraceful attacking quality we posses will eventually will catch up and affect the whole squad. I personally did not think we were bad in the back and the middle until the Newcastle game. If we want to turn things around, we need to fecking go and buy an attacker no matter what.
 
Initially the media were big upping him, saying he has personality, has a style of play, and was successful at Sporting.

But after the newcsl defeat, the knives are coming out. Over his head, stubborn, defeatist, etc.
 
USREDEVIL said:
Initially the media were big upping him, saying he has personality, has a style of play, and was successful at Sporting.

But after the newcsl defeat, the knives are coming out. Over his head, stubborn, defeatist, etc.
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That's what happens. It's a results business, and the results have been horrendous.
 
At least he’s sticking to his idea. Like he’s said if you change things because of results then it’s the end for any coach. The storm will end and the sun will rise
 
Wish him the best in 2025 but I don’t see where this turns around. Players not up for it and the one player we have that looked decent has now regressed like the others. Dark days.
 
Ruben can't do much with ETH's players, who lost 16 last season, and now are on course to do worse. Progressively worse, finally a manager who has exposed them rather than paper over the cracks.

Give him 2 summers and this team will be transformed.
 
At the risk of casting judgement too soon, I'll say this.

In my opinion, almost all of our previous failed managers showed very quickly that they were never going to succeed, aka win the PL and/or CL. We've come 2nd before. We've won the FA Cup and League Cup. Europa League. All the minor trophies. Those were not considered successes. Success at this club is an extremely high bar.

The people that pointed it out early on were of course talked down. It's not the done thing in Man Utd support to cast negative judgement on the manager too soon. Unfortunately, in the end they were proven right. And more painfully, we wasted years, billions of pounds, and loads of talented careers to find out the obvious.

As with Amorim it's early days, but he is showing similar signs.

With managers though, it is different. It is all about decision making.

It's possible for Amorim to completely turn this moment around, but not with the route he's going. He needs to re-evaluate his strategy, because he's clearly a talented coach but he is making a lot of obviously wrong decisions thus far (possible due to age/inexperience) and if he does not course correct, he will fail.
 
He'sRaldo said:
At the risk of casting judgement too soon, I'll say this.

In my opinion, almost all of our previous failed managers showed very quickly that they were never going to succeed, aka win the PL and/or CL. We've come 2nd before. We've won the FA Cup and League Cup. Europa League. All the minor trophies. Those were not considered successes. Success at this club is an extremely high bar.

The people that pointed it out early on were of course talked down. It's not the done thing in Man Utd support to cast negative judgement on the manager too soon. Unfortunately, in the end they were proven right. And more painfully, we wasted years, billions of pounds, and loads of talented careers to find out the obvious.

As with Amorim it's early days, but he is showing similar signs.

With managers though, it is different. It is all about decision making.

It's possible for Amorim to completely turn this moment around, but not with the route he's going. He needs to re-evaluate his strategy, because he's clearly a talented coach but he is making a lot of obviously wrong decisions thus far (possible due to age/inexperience) and if he does not course correct, he will fail.
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I feel like you are talking to me with this post because, until Ten Hag, I was this kinda fan: Back the manager, give him 'time,' cling to every positive as a sign of progress and a turning point.

However, after 10 years of the Man Utd boom and bust cycle, I have finally decided to look at things totally dispassionately. I am not going to project all my hopes onto the manager, nor am I going to blame him for everything that goes wrong and act like if we just got the right guy everything would turn to gold.

With Amorim, he's obviously a good coach but everything he excels at goes against the strengths of the players we have. Without some changes, either to his approach or our playing staff, it's hard to see how things get better. To me, that's just obvious.

There's a genuine chance that we go down if things continue along the current trajectory.
 
I dont really see how he can survive. Even if Zirkzee goes on loan with option to buy. Anthony is loaned to Betis. Casemiro goes to Saudi. We would still not raise much cash. We need LWB and RWB IMO, nobody is convincing right now. Thats without addressing the fact we cant score goals and need couple of new forwards too. Amad is the only consistent goal threat.

We then have no central midfield, and could do with a couple of sigings there. Can say the same at CB. Martinez has been shite lately and looks to be struggling. So we need 1 or 2 there as well.

News on the grapvine is there isnt alot of cash available, and we have almost nobody we can sell who would get us a decent fee. Amorim is screwed, unless he changes things and gets the most out of what hes got..
 
PlasticRed said:
I dont really see how he can survive. Even if Zirkzee goes on loan with option to buy. Anthony is loaned to Betis. Casemiro goes to Saudi. We would still not raise much cash. We need LWB and RWB IMO, nobody is convincing right now. Thats without addressing the fact we cant score goals and need couple of new forwards too. Amad is the only consistent goal threat.

We then have no central midfield, and could do with a couple of sigings there. Can say the same at CB. Martinez has been shite lately and looks to be struggling. So we need 1 or 2 there as well.

News on the grapvine is there isnt alot of cash available, and we have almost nobody we can sell who would get us a decent fee. Amorim is screwed, unless he changes things and gets the most out of what hes got..
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If there is 1 priority, it is the LWB position (or Shaw coming back uninjured). Once that starts to function, I think the rest of the team will start clicking together. We don't need wholesale changes once confidence flows. We can do the main business of getting players who fit at the end of the season.
 
PlasticRed said:
I dont really see how he can survive. Even if Zirkzee goes on loan with option to buy. Anthony is loaned to Betis. Casemiro goes to Saudi. We would still not raise much cash. We need LWB and RWB IMO, nobody is convincing right now. Thats without addressing the fact we cant score goals and need couple of new forwards too. Amad is the only consistent goal threat.

We then have no central midfield, and could do with a couple of sigings there. Can say the same at CB. Martinez has been shite lately and looks to be struggling. So we need 1 or 2 there as well.

News on the grapvine is there isnt alot of cash available, and we have almost nobody we can sell who would get us a decent fee. Amorim is screwed, unless he changes things and gets the most out of what hes got..
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Wouldn’t that be better for you? If he got fired? Isn’t that what you want? You’ve been moaning about him constantly for a while now.
 
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If we continue to flirt with relegation, Amorim will be gone. He shouldn’t be but he will be sacked because the economic hit the Glazers have to take will be of gargantuan proportions notwithstanding the FFP regulations they have to navigate.

Ultimately, Amorim’s sole goal would be to keep us up this season and then rebuild from scratch.

It is going to be a very rough ride.
 
DRJosh said:
If we continue to flirt with relegation, Amorim will be gone. He shouldn’t be but he will be sacked because the economic hit the Glazers have to take will be of gargantuan proportions notwithstanding the FFP regulations they have to navigate.

Ultimately, Amorim’s sole goal would be to keep us up this season and then rebuild from scratch.

It is going to be a very rough ride.
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Speaking about relegation during some of our lowest post-Fergie retirement points before this one it did cross my mind a few times that it could well be the great reset we need in a start-from-scratch kind of way... wrong, silly me. Right now as genuine threat of relegation looms over I honestly think it would just kill us as a football club once and for all.
 
I have a feeling that Amorim might be purposely playing bad wingbacks aka fullbacks to show Ineos that we need to try target one atleast one wingback as quick as possible in January.

We have tried Amad at wingback, Antony at wingback, Mazraoui at wing back, Dalot at wing back -

But it seems like he is purposely chosing the worst combo atm almost on purpose.

Mazraoui has played better at RCB than RB. The amount of times Dalot cuts in as a LWB and takes a shot with his right foot that hits the crowd than on target is really infuriating because it so obvious that Garnacho can do most of what Dalot can do since Dalot's crossing is not good, his shots are not good, Garnacho is a better dribbler and Dalot doesnt really provide much defensively imo for people who say Garnacho would be horrendous defensively ( which is what we need anyway to be more attacking based than defensive as seen when we played Amad at RWB).

Its just confusing as why we have played with a 5-2-3 recently. It's influenced heavily by dropping Rashford for moving out, Garnacho with probable leaks but why not play Antony as a RWB with Amad? If Garnacho keeps coming off the bench at 70 mins then cant he start a game at wing back?

The whole sudden defensive team is confusing and the only reason i can think of is that we let in set piece goals but playing fullbacks isnt going to help us much more than wingbacks.
 
He'sRaldo said:
At the risk of casting judgement too soon, I'll say this.

In my opinion, almost all of our previous failed managers showed very quickly that they were never going to succeed, aka win the PL and/or CL. We've come 2nd before. We've won the FA Cup and League Cup. Europa League. All the minor trophies. Those were not considered successes. Success at this club is an extremely high bar.

The people that pointed it out early on were of course talked down. It's not the done thing in Man Utd support to cast negative judgement on the manager too soon. Unfortunately, in the end they were proven right. And more painfully, we wasted years, billions of pounds, and loads of talented careers to find out the obvious.

As with Amorim it's early days, but he is showing similar signs.

With managers though, it is different. It is all about decision making.

It's possible for Amorim to completely turn this moment around, but not with the route he's going. He needs to re-evaluate his strategy, because he's clearly a talented coach but he is making a lot of obviously wrong decisions thus far (possible due to age/inexperience) and if he does not course correct, he will fail.
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SAF - long time ago but could have been sacked on several occasions in the 7 years it took him to win the PL.

Moyes - Obvious disaster from the get go. Clearly well out of his depth.

Van Gaal - After a rough start, we actually started looking like a decent team by the end of his first season. Second season we retained the new ability to control games and dominate possention but lost any attacking flair we had so ended up toothless. Still controlled games though, even if it bored everyone to death.

Mourinho - Undid anything positive re possession based football Van Gaal implemented because he doesn't believe in systems or style of play, and instead went ultra pragmatic. Won a couple of trophies doing it but set us back a decade in terms of playing style. More importantly, he introduced the toxic mentally we're still suffering from today. Picking players based on patronage and who he decided to not throw under the bus when it didn't work out for him.

Ole - Wanted and tried to get us playing swashbuckling football of old. Worked for a few games but quickly became evident that it relied entirely on momentum, and once that stopped the players didn't have the self believe to regain it.

Rangnick - hired to try to implement a high pressing system that the next coach could build on. Players went with it for a couple of games then downed tools forcing Rangnick to revert to something in the players comfort zone. Which still didn't work because the players already made the call he wasn't worth their time listening to since he'd be gone end of the season.

Ten Hag - Also tried to implement a style early on. Even with a full pre-season it was an even worse disaster than Amorim is currently facing. So he gave up and reverted to the former system the players are used to, because they just can't adapt.

TLDR - recent managers have all gone to shit after quickly abandoning their preferred systems to cater for the squad they inherited. Once you do that you give in to the players and accept their preferred system is the only system that works. You need to win a lot of silverware and wait for senior players to move on before you have any real authority to implement your own tactics. feck that.
 
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bgoodall said:
Wish him the best in 2025 but I don’t see where this turns around. Players not up for it and the one player we have that looked decent has now regressed like the others. Dark days.
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So what is the solution? The players are shit. No manager can change that as we have seen in the past 6 years.
 
StuCol said:
Even if we could play 4-4-3, we’d still lose
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That is the thing. Our fans think once we play 433 our players suddenly are smart or work hard or score or dont make stupid mistakes at the back.
This squad needs training and replacing. Simple
 
AneRu said:
Ten Hag was sacked only because he was a poor coach, he also assembled this mediocre, slow and weak squad at great cost. No one is going to come and make Martinez taller and faster. A coach can do so much but at this level you need to have at least mastered the basics like ball control, short passing and the stamina of a professional footballer. Do you see any of these in this squad?
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Martinez is one.
 
Maybe relegation is the best thing that could happen to the club. We’d be forced to sell all our (underperforming) high earners to meet financial rules, have to bring through a few youth teamers and then once we inevitably get promoted back there’ll be a clean slate to work from.

We are not getting relegated though
 
USREDEVIL said:
Initially the media were big upping him, saying he has personality, has a style of play, and was successful at Sporting.

But after the newcsl defeat, the knives are coming out. Over his head, stubborn, defeatist, etc.
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This is inevitable as a united manager. He knows it and we know it.

He said from day one, he wants to implement his philosophy and this will take time and the right signings. Meanwhile he will need to deal with the average squad he has to work with.
 
I hope we have enough funds to be a quick rebuild else it will be a very slow and painful journey for all. I think Amorim needs to shipped out 7-10 players and bring in 4-5 new players and promote our younger players. It will be major heart surgery where no one is safe. We might as well get kick out of Europe altogether so Amorim can have more time for coaching.
 
Escobar said:
So what is the solution? The players are shit. No manager can change that as we have seen in the past 6 years.
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So start selling the players to find funds for new ones. Whether it's Zirkzee, Bruno, Rashford, Garnacho or even Mainoo, everyone can go if there is a buyer who comes with a half decent offer.

Even on this forum, every time there's rumours of a player being sold, there is always a big discussion on whether we are making a huge mistake. There is no mistake with any of these players. They are all flops when judged by the highest bar and no one is truly indispensable.

Things will never change if the club DNA remains so resistant to moving players on.
 
Bert_ said:
TLDR - recent managers have all gone to shit after quickly abandoning their preferred systems to cater for the squad they inherited. Once you do that you give in to the players and accept their preferred system is the only system that works. You need to win a lot of silverware and wait for senior players to move on before you have any real authority to implement your own tactics. feck that.
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The system is all the talk right now, but that's not all that goes into managing a group of players at the top level.

Unfortunately for Amorim, he has been dropped into a situation where he has to showcase his full management repertoire right off the bat. Not just limited to tactics and coaching, but also player management, morale management, pragmatism, media astuteness, etc. So far he has struggled.

One thing I will say is that fans declaring large swathes of the playing squad as average/poor/lazy/unprofessional, etc players has long been a red flag for me re the manager. That is what is currently happening with Amorim.
 
As long as we can avoid relegation, I feel very confident that with backing, Amorim will get United back where we belong.

He's an excellent manager and has a clear plan, it's not his fault that he's stuck with technically, physically, and mentally deficient players bought by the people systematically destroying this club.

I think the reason worry is that we can't afford to give him the players he needs, and selling is unlikely to work well, since we're trying to sell obvious duds who have already been exposed to the world.
 
Rasmus_9 said:
Maybe relegation is the best thing that could happen to the club. We’d be forced to sell all our (underperforming) high earners to meet financial rules, have to bring through a few youth teamers and then once we inevitably get promoted back there’ll be a clean slate to work from.

We are not getting relegated though
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What are some of you smoking?? Relegation would be absolutely devastating if it ever happens, especially with the idiots running the club at the moment. It’s basically game over for any attempt at being a top side for the next 10-15 years. We’d be in even more financial trouble losing sponsor and TV money adding to ever growing debt. How the hell would the club be ”forced” to sell our jokers with the amount money they’re earning at the club? We’d lose a lot of prestige and no promising youth player would want to join when there are PL options available. I cant even begin to imagine the mediocrity we’d succumb into if ever relegated. Stop running this narrative.
 
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