The more Ten Hag recruited/sold the worse he made the squad and the more damage he did.
Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach
- Thread starter sewey89
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Yep, fir his first season he ended up just adapting oles counter attacking tactics after we got battered in our first two games. His vision, whatever it was appeared wholly unsuited to the pl
Ah yes another guy who thinks recruitment is solely a manager job.
Honestly. Weve recruited poorly since even when SAF was here toward the end. Quite sure the problems are not just the managers every time for transfers.
Exactly. And it wasn’t even that good of a season. 7-0, humiliation against Sevilla and City. Rashford stepped up that season otherwise it would have been same as ETH’s second season.He didn't, he papered over the cracks that season and got 2nd in one of the worst Premier League seasons.
The season after where he actually tried to buy his players and play his way, he bought a load of players, renewed contracts of others, and sold others. Thought Anthony was better than Amad, and even played Amari Forson ahead of him! During his time, there were reports that Amad may be sold.
£600m later and after breaking every negative record he could find, he left us with the worst squad post Fergie. If ETH had carried he would have got similar results in his own formation.
This revisionism is getting. United fans are so used to mediocrity that they can't see a good thing for what it is anymore and want to keep reverting to type.
If we carry on, our standards will keep dropping, and it won't just take a surplus Bayern player (Mazraoui) to embarrass our squad, but maybe an Everton one!
This revisionism is embarrassing. Give this manager at least 2 summers before judging.
Then you have threads like this where people could see that it was not all happy and rosy. The revisionism is astonishing.
It’s well established that he wanted control over transfers and then we saw 90% of our dealings with players he worked with before, even missing out on Timber and Gravenberch.
You can choose to turn a blind eye to all of that though.
There's no blind eye, you're choosing to cherry picking snippets and ignoring others. Having control does not mean scouting player's himself, for example.
Every manager wants control by way of signoff on a signing, this isnt something exclusive to our coaches - Amorim himself said he wanted control on this.
Its also well reported that ten hag relied on the club for a shadow squad for transfers and was shocked to see nothing. We sacked our global scouting head too. The club has been terribly run and made shit signings well before ten hag.
Well rub clubs generally have scouts or recruitment heads in place to say "no, Antonty isnt the guy", just like Liverpool did when pushing Salah onto Klopp when he wasnt his choice.
A veto on both sides doesnt give more control to any party, so the idea that he is solely responsible for the state of the squad all of a sudden is agenda driven bollocks.
Ajax's game plan would have won us multiple trophies but the start would have been as painful as it's now under Amorims. And that would have needed as big squad overhaul as we need now - with us needing to buy mobile and technically gifted players who could do with PL-s intensity.
ETH didn't have the stomach for it and after getting brutally outplayed by Brentford we went back to "player power" and scrapped all plans.
We can't do it now. Stay with the manager and let him to weed out unsuited.
Yep after demanding power over recruitment it was soon obvious he had no idea, despite making comments before he came about how Pep underestimated the physicality of the league. He can't have watched much of the PL before he came.
Wait, you’re writing DeLigt off already? He’s arguably been our best CB.
Also no fans balls in the box as you insinuate he’s prone too. A bit like the idiots that used to say Smalling would be sent off every week in Italy for wrestling in the box
This is one of those myths people cling onto “the manager got everything he wanted”. Firstly no managers get everything they want and usually it’s a case of compromise on some or most signings. The likes of the Anthony , that was a panic signing (like Casemiro) , was not necessarily a primary target, moreso the club not having any prudent alternatives, als Klopp-Brandt point below. (I also think the club might’ve sh*t the bed with ETH and instead of telling him to proceed with his tactics regardless of the pain , he was told we have to finish top 4).
Secondly , a manager supposedly picking every signing is the clubs fault. This just shouldn’t happen and if it’s happening it’s a club failing , not a manager failing.
The best example has to be Mo Salah at Liverpool. If he doesn’t sign they probably don’t win the league this season and the last time they won it. Prob don’t even win the CL either. And yet Klopp, their best manager in sometime , wanted Brandt over Salah. And since the club has an actual functioning transfer policy with an Actusl plan, they went with the player they felt was a better fit.
Thirdly , Liverpool have had 3 managers who have challanged for or won the league. Rodgers, Klopp and now slot. That’s not a coincidence, it clearly points to the fact that strong owners with a cohesive plan that they consistently stick to , can be more important then who is managing a team.
Lastly, Liverpool reportedly considered Ruben and felt he wasn’t suited to the squad. United did the exact opposite and chose the manager and now have to worry about the squad. This is what United have been doing since SAF left. Square pegs in round holes.
The hyper focus of some fans on ETH or the manager is tiresome. United aren’t at this point because of him, it’s much much deeper than that and all the compounded problems, created by the glazers over 11 years of mismanagement, is what we are seeing now.
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People always say “we’ve recruited badly since SAF left”
Or is it really we’ve recruited badly since his brother Martin left? Was he the real brains behind recruiting
Or is it really we’ve recruited badly since his brother Martin left? Was he the real brains behind recruiting
Good post but we were 3rd not 2nd if I remember correctlyHe didn't, he papered over the cracks that season and got 2nd in one of the worst Premier League seasons.
The season after where he actually tried to buy his players and play his way, he bought a load of players, renewed contracts of others, and sold others. Thought Anthony was better than Amad, and even played Amari Forson ahead of him! During his time, there were reports that Amad may be sold.
£600m later and after breaking every negative record he could find, he left us with the worst squad post Fergie. If ETH had carried he would have got similar results in his own formation.
This revisionism is getting
If we carry on, our standards will keep dropping, and it won't just take a surplus Bayern player (Mazraoui) to embarrass our squad, but maybe an Everton one!
This revisionism is embarrassing. Give this manager at least 2 summers before judging.
No one ever wrote De Ligt off. He isn't being written off by me, he wasn't written off at Juve or at Bayern either. Its just that his talent doesn't justify his monstrous salary. I used the Rashford analogy on this. 7 goals and 3 assists in 25 games isn't bad for an EPL player. Its just that he's simply not worth 350k a week.
It’s not how it was coming across Dev.
Anyway look this isn’t a thread about him so let’s not derail the discussion
amazing how many people in the year 2025 still believe managers go out and sign players!
I won't speak further about it but thanks for helping me clarify it.
With Woodward it probably was like that. Only with a signed photo of Walt Disney on the wallI think they imagine it’s something like
Hilarious.I think they imagine it’s something like
He just changed his principles and played Ole ball and said Utd cant/wont play the Ajax way. I bet if RA did the same thing our results would have slightly improved like TH and we would finish top 4 every now and then.
'Arry?I think they imagine it’s something like
I defended ETH for a long time but looking back on his tenure there isn‘t much positiv (Except for the two trophies)
Newcastle was the worst half an hour I can remember but there were positiv signs before.
Managers have clearly a lot to say in the recruitment area as was pointed out many times during his contract talks and looking ag the player we signed. We changed that now a bit I think, hence the first team coach instead of manager
Newcastle was the worst half an hour I can remember but there were positiv signs before.
Managers have clearly a lot to say in the recruitment area as was pointed out many times during his contract talks and looking ag the player we signed. We changed that now a bit I think, hence the first team coach instead of manager
If Mount had not been a crock, Højlund had been a 20 league goal striker, Onana had not been blunder-prone and erratic, and if Shaw could still play: would Ten Hag’s system have worked? The injury crisis was insane. Shaw, Mount, Licha, Yoro all with long term injuries, Højlund and Mainoo medium term injuries.
We are hoping to buy a proven goal scorer, at least one wingback, and possibly a central midfielder. Would Ten Hag’s team not be complete with these reinforcements? Someday we might learn the truth about who actually asked for and signed off on the players Ten Hag signed. I doubt it was Ten Hag running roughshod over the board. Regardless, the big money signings didn’t pan out , and they were seen as critical for making this system work.
Now with Amorim it’s not just a few players to shift but 9 or 10, with this season a write off that hopefully we can avoid relegation. He needs a new crop of specialists in order for his preferred style to work — and there’s no guarantee they won’t turn out to be Zirkzee 2.0. And then we will have a side that can only play this style, so if Amorim doesn’t stay the full 5 (?) years, we will again have a misfit squad who can’t adapt. Whole thing sounds like madness.
We are hoping to buy a proven goal scorer, at least one wingback, and possibly a central midfielder. Would Ten Hag’s team not be complete with these reinforcements? Someday we might learn the truth about who actually asked for and signed off on the players Ten Hag signed. I doubt it was Ten Hag running roughshod over the board. Regardless, the big money signings didn’t pan out , and they were seen as critical for making this system work.
Now with Amorim it’s not just a few players to shift but 9 or 10, with this season a write off that hopefully we can avoid relegation. He needs a new crop of specialists in order for his preferred style to work — and there’s no guarantee they won’t turn out to be Zirkzee 2.0. And then we will have a side that can only play this style, so if Amorim doesn’t stay the full 5 (?) years, we will again have a misfit squad who can’t adapt. Whole thing sounds like madness.
But basically any manager that has been successful at a top club over the last years in the EPL has signed that amount of players, so why does it sound like madness?
No ETH's system wouldn't have worked, as the unbelievable amount of space that we were leaving and just how open we were was happening no matter how many (or how few) injuries we had. Obviously without the injuries it would have been a little better, but even when we had almost everyone fit we were still playing like absolute shit.
Amorim does not need a team of specialists. Wingback is really the only position that is significantly different in his formation than it is in a 4231 or 433 (and even then many will be fine as a fullback or a more attacking winger). Otherwise, the majority of good strikers, #10's, central midfielders , central defenders and keepers are easily able to play in other formations, and the main issue will be training and getting used to different patterns of play and players moving into different positions.
That’s absolutely not the problem. The problem is that selling unsuccessful players is nigh impossible, because of the long contracts and the high wages. Every new manager is stuck with a load of unsuccessful, cynical players who cannot be shipped elsewhere and cannot adapt to a new system.
I think we can say without any element of doubt that Ten Hag asked for every signing before last summers transfer except for Casemiro (because he wanted De Jong instead), who signed them off is a different matter, but these are the players Ten Hag wanted for sure which shows just what a terrible judge he was, and if he'd had his way we'd have got Arnaoutovic, Timber, De Jong, and Amrabat permanently as well.
We can't now say Amorim shouldn't be allowed to rip it all up just because Ten Hag messed up so badly, the only alternative is to sack Amorim now, and get a manager in to play to strengths of our current squad, which we already know now isn't good enough for anything other than scrapping for top 6, and a flucky cup run.
This is revisionism at its finest! You will have a hard time making the argument this squad is worse than two years ago to begin with.He didn't, he papered over the cracks that season and got 2nd in one of the worst Premier League seasons.
The season after where he actually tried to buy his players and play his way, he bought a load of players, renewed contracts of others, and sold others. Thought Anthony was better than Amad, and even played Amari Forson ahead of him! During his time, there were reports that Amad may be sold.
£600m later and after breaking every negative record he could find, he left us with the worst squad post Fergie. If ETH had carried he would have got similar results in his own formation.
This revisionism is getting
If we carry on, our standards will keep dropping, and it won't just take a surplus Bayern player (Mazraoui) to embarrass our squad, but maybe an Everton one!
This revisionism is embarrassing. Give this manager at least 2 summers before judging.
Amad started getting starts under Ten Hag last season after he was injured and became a key player when he started contributing.
Maz is one of the better players in the squad, picked up for next to nothing.
Amorim deserves time but no one can survive the losing streak we are on now if it continues. It is way worse than anything we have seen under 10Hag.
It absolutely is. £600m spent on this terrible squad.
Weak argument using the same term revisionism. Are you honestly saying this squad is better than the one ETH inherited and he treated Amad fairly by playing Anthony and Aforson over him? Seems like your comment was a knee jerk reaction.
Yes and yes. Amad was played when he was fit and got starts once he started playing well.
As much as we have to recognise it's a process we don't have to kid ourselves in thinking that relegation type form is part of the process. I'm backing him but fans have every right to have criticisms and doubts over Amorim. Since taking over, we sit 17th in the form table. Only Southampton, Leicester and Ipswich have been worse.
It's delusional if anything to accept this as part of the process and not worrying at all. We've not had an incredibly tough run of fixtures either.
Again not to say I want him out or I have no faith in him but to be concerned is fine. Amorim needs to get us playing much better football this season even if we don't buy or sell anyone in January. Part of his role is to make the team better which isn't happening at the moment.
When Ole left I think there was basically no defensive midfielder, a desperate need for a second center back, a completely distraught Maguire and Rashford, and generally no quality full back aside From Shaw. There was also no right winger. It was certainly a shit squad.
This squad has its flaws but De Ligt, Maz, Ugarte, a more in-form Maguire, Garnacho, Mainoo are huge additions in quality.
As for Amad it's a weird one, he should have started more under ten hag but he also had more maturing to do. Amorim has credited the way he was conditioned before he came so I don't think we should read too much into his case.
And it was a terrible squad when EtH arrived.
We have had an insanely tough run of fixtures, with most in-form teams - Arsenal, Bournemouth, Newcastle & Wolves within them. Now also Liverpool coming.
Feel sorry for Ruben. Given a real shit show and a honking run of fixtures to start off with. Let's hope his luck changes soon and we can get some more training sessions in. We could do with tomorrow's fixture getting called off for weather and address is again when we are playing a bit more cohesively.
Feel like the board have set him up to fail. We could have brought him in this month when there’s less games to give him more training sessions to implement his style.
What was he actually trying to achieve though. Everyone knows he held significant sway over recruitment but the players we signed were mostly the opposite of mobile and in many cases lacked technical ability too
It's not like he developed the ajax style so not clear he was capable of implementing it somewhere new
I'd much rather have the squad he started with right now plus even half of the £600m to spend (we wouldn't get that back now).