Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach

Doesn't understand the premiere league. Who knows if he ever will. Was sleeping through 60 minutes. Highly disrespectful on a day like today.
 
I think he's in a bit of trouble. We keep conceding cheap, easy goals and the defenders don't even look like they really care. We've become a team who are up for the big games like Liverpool, Arsenal and City but when we play the midtable teams who should be our bread and butter, we look completely hopeless. Nobody other than Amad comes out of today's match with any credit.
 
People will catch on to it next season, but he's not as good as advertised.

That second half (I didn't catch the first), we completely ceded possession to them in their own half meaning they had no problem getting into our half. Against a decent passing team that is rookie mistake as they would easily pick you off when they continue to get into your half.
 
We are playing with 5 defenders, a DM and a false 9. We shouldn’t be surprised we generated only one shot on target.

Chasing a goal or two and bringing on Antony, Hojlund and Garnacho shows how bad things are. Garnacho wasn’t great but was decent enough until we totally changed our system and pretty much put him up for sale.

Which brings me to my next point, Amorim is having a shocker with his insistence on this formation. It is inherently negative and we don’t have the personnel for it. The extra defenders aren’t making us any better at the back and the attack that was already bad is at the same level or worse.

Our best attackers are Bruno, Rashford and Garnacho and all have been made to look worse than what they are. Mainoo looks lost, Dalot stands out terribly at LWB. What is the point of persisting with this not only for every game but for every minute of the game. I hate EtH and even he was known to switch up formations when chasing games.

I like him and think he comes across well but whenever a young manager thinks he’s above being wrong it always ends up bad. If you are a genius, then it needs to be proved and right now what we are seeing is just a lot of talk. This is the Premier League not a Mickey Mouse league where you can just turn up and watch teams roll over.
 
And that applies to a lot of the supposedly lesser teams, we have a collection of players that just aren’t suited to this league. I’m sure a lot of our players would do well in Serie A but in the PL they don’t have to pace and athleticism nor the technique to overcome it (Mainoo being a good example).

I’ve seen lots of fans now calling for the Bournemouth manager but his brand of football require even more athleticism than Amorim’s.
It's mad to ask for another manager already but its not that controversial to suggest another manager could have done better so far. Our players aren't great but do better suit four at the back
 
I also predicted the same, Amroim has accountability at the end of the day he still needs to meet a minimal expectation with the teams performances but INEOS / Berrada have put themselves and the manager included in this predicament.

It was a foolish decision to hire the manager mid season to contest with a congested fixture schedule with difficult games, knowing the managers system is entirely different to the previous employee. Then given PSR they would have known they can't heavily reinforce with the January window before hiring him, so it's incompetence across every senior executive position at the club.
It was also foolish to hire a manager who only plays a certain way when we don't have the players who fit that system when he isn't able to sign anyone. Unless the owners lied to him and said he would have money to spend in January. I suspect he may have some regrets about taking this job.
 
Lost 4 of our last 6 and 3 of our last 4 at home against teams that aren't even traditional Big 6 teams. This is not normal.

He is way too rigid with his tactics. Fine if he wants to stick with a back 3 but there is more than one way to play a back 3 than just 3-4-3. Especially if you dont have the personnel for it. He can play a back 3 in a system that can at least cover the deficiencies of some players.
 
What is the point of playing the system if you haven’t got the players for it?!

And having one way of playing is ridiculous.

Brighton haven’t played 442 all season. They changed it to suit the weaknesses of how they knew we would set up. Tactically flexible.

Every team knows exactly how we are gonna set up, so we are so easy to plan for.
Good point. His inflexibility regarding tactics has always been a huge concern for me.

Postecoglou gets pelters for refusing to change his system (rightfully so). Really struggling to see how Amorim is any different.
 
I think when he took over we were 4 points from the top 4, how many are we now? That was with Ruud getting us points and he’s only managed for a season or two in Holland previously. The players don’t suit the system, it makes players like Garnacho, Mainoo, Mazraoui worse. We need to sell a good amount of the squad to get Rubén’s football to work, it’s another massive gamble from the club.

We need to sell a good chunk of the squad to get any manager's football to work to required level.

The club knew that before they hired him. That's why even under ETH the CEO was talking about winning the title three years from now being an ambitious aim, one that only became more unrealistic after ETH bombed.

They know a multi-year rebuild is needed regardless, so Amorim specifically needing different players is meaningless except in the sort term.
 
Amorim is done for no matter what. If he changes his tactics he'll effectively be giving up on his principles and the reasons we took him on. If we stick with his tactics he is screwed as he hasn't got the players to do it and neither do we have money to buy any decent ones in the summer. What a mess!
 
We are playing with 5 defenders, a DM and a false 9. We shouldn’t be surprised we generated only one shot on target.

Chasing a goal or two and bringing on Antony, Hojlund and Garnacho shows how bad things are. Garnacho wasn’t great but was decent enough until we totally changed our system and pretty much put him up for sale.

Which brings me to my next point, Amorim is having a shocker with his insistence on this formation. It is inherently negative and we don’t have the personnel for it. The extra defenders aren’t making us any better at the back and the attack that was already bad is at the same level or worse.

Our best attackers are Bruno, Rashford and Garnacho and all have been made to look worse than what they are. Mainoo looks lost, Dalot stands out terribly at LWB. What is the point of persisting with this not only for every game but for every minute of the game. I hate EtH and even he was known to switch up formations when chasing games.

I like him and think he comes across well but whenever a young manager thinks he’s above being wrong it always turns out wrong. If you are a genius, then it needs to be proved and right now what we are seeing is just a lot of talk. This is the Premier League not a Mickey Mouse league where you can just turn up and watch teams roll over.
Amorim was brought in to play his way. If you have a problem with it blame the person that hired him, in the middle of the season...
 
His system is killing him. What I don't understand is how the hierarchy identified him as Ten Hag's successor knowing he would play this formation, not having the players to fit it, and then not backing him in the transfer window. It's all so weird. I think this season is a free hit. Our players are that bad and this is their level. He did well to get results in Anfield, Emirates, and at City.
 
People need to stop giving Amorim a free pass. While he’s undoubtedly a talented coach who knows his stuff, talent alone isn’t enough—it never has been. His job is to sell a vision to the players and inspire them to fight for it, and right now, that’s not happening. Forget systems and tactics for a moment—the fundamentals are about players looking motivated and having a clear sense of purpose. Right now, there’s no evidence that anything meaningful is being built with this team. Amorim needs to step up and show more—this isn’t good enough.
 
This is on him. Brighton were controlling the midfield for long period of time and he did nothing to change that. Everyone can see their goals are coming. We are not compact today and so easy to penetrate from the wings. Maz was awful and couldn't deal with Mitoma. Thought Yoro was invinsible as well. Don't know why he didn't sub Yoro with Eriksen when we are chasing for goals. What's the risk anyway?
Oh please. It’s on the players - as it has been for the past decade when we’ve brought in various managers and they’ve all eventually failed.
 
If he continues to play 5 defensive players at Old Trafford while not caring about attacking, I would rather move on from him. His record is a disgrace. He probably deserves a preseason but I think most other clubs don't tolerate this record.
I'm not advocating near moving on from him, but he needs to know that you cant play 5 at the back at OT and have zero urgency. And yet we keep doing it.

I saw a couple times where a forward pass was on and he pointed toward the defenders to start again - I just dont get it. It's part on players if they're scared to play forward but he's definitely telling them something too.
 
I fully backed Amorim until the Saints game. Both that and Brighton have been atrocious from a tactical and selection perspective. It's not just the players, they were only 40% of the problem in the past 2 games.

Onana instead of Bayindir? Why move Amad from his RWB position where he scored 3 goals to #10? Why persist with both Dalot and Mazraoui? And why do teams play through us so easily despite 6 defenders on the pitch?

Amorim is an honest and nice person, so it's very hard to say this for myself and maybe many fans. But if he keeps making such blunders, it will be quite fair to let him go in the summer. Top clubs should be ruthless.

If you want a 3 atb system that's proven at the highest levels, Simone Inzaghi will be likely available in the summer.
 
What is the point of playing the system if you haven’t got the players for it?!

And having one way of playing is ridiculous.

Brighton haven’t played 442 all season. They changed it to suit the weaknesses of how they knew we would set up. Tactically flexible.

Every team knows exactly how we are gonna set up, so we are so easy to plan for.

He has explained this a million times. We either start playing it now with the players we have, so that we can figure out which ones can play the system and which one's can't. Or we wait till the summer, wasting an entire half a season where we could have been training for a specific tactic and finding out more about these players.
 
Unfortunately so far has been the most naive and tactically one dimentional manager this club has had after SAF. He’s still in the honeymoon’s phase with the fans giving him the benefit of the doubt. If it wasnt for Amad’s heroics against City and Southampton he’d have us well in a relegation battle. Just because he’s handsome and talks nice doesnt mean he’s got a clue. Has made a midtable side look like a championship one in just two month’s time. Absolutely awful so far with literally no positive signs
 
File under Villas Boas.
Racing cars last time I heard.

As for Amorim - looked like a 39 year old completely out of his depth ever since he got here. A lot of fans being positive for the sake of it at first but more and more are starting to see the situation for what it is now.
 
I'm all for giving him time but we have to start creating chances. if it doesn't improve by end of the season he can go. Least bothered about the results or points.
 
I fear that he's got too much to do and not enough money or time to do it. Keeping ETH for as long as we have done and bringing him in at that particular time has damned him, imo. There are too many players who need to go, and too many players who need to come in to replace and improve the ones going. Off the top of my head, we need a new keeper, two wingbacks, at least 1 central midfielder, at least 1 striker (who is going to cost the most amount of money out of everyone in the squad) and probably another attacker or two. You're looking at a minimum of 7 players. Minimum. Before we even talk about depth options.
 
Honestly, we played better football under ETH - and that’s saying something.
thats bullshit. We were an open side against ETH and were disaster to watch both going forward and defence. We need to give Amorim some players on the left side as this team just wont work with Dalot and Bruno on the left.
 
We need to sell a good chunk of the squad to get any manager's football to work to required level.

The club knew that before they hired him. That's why even under ETH the CEO was talking about winning the title three years from now being an ambitious aim, one that's only more "ambitious" after ETH bombed. They know a rebuild is needed regardless.
I sort of agree, but it’s clear that we wouldn’t be struggling quite as much had we gone for a manager that can implement a system that doesn’t require really particular players like wingbacks that we don’t have. Realistically I think we might have to sell players like Mainoo and Garnacho to fund players these players. If then Ruben doesn’t work out and is sacked we’ll likely recruit a manager that has no use for them, and the cycle will continue.
 
Conte didn't win the league playing 3 at the back?
He did but he started the season playing a 4-2-4 and changed it to 343 after his initial system didn’t work and saw evidence that the 3 at the back worked better for his players.

3 at the back can work in the league but it’s pointless trying to shoehorn a team into it.
 
I stand by the fact the 4-2-3-1 with an adjustment on the tactics is our best formation. Obviously ETH left us too open. The players are used to it as well. Clearly this formation isn’t working at the moment with the personnel he has.
Nothing is going to work with this thrown together squad that won’t even fight for a loose ball. You can throw formations around with absolute certainty they will work but I promise you they won’t and everything will be questioned again. You’ve seen the work rate, you’ve seen the fight, you’ve seen the ability. Now tell me moving forward 10 yards in their position will change these fundementals.
 
Just stop hiring managers that have completely different systems and tactics. INEOS have failed yet again and did exactly what Woodward failed at.

Someone at the top needs to decide how we want to play football and then keep hiring managers with similar systems. Would Barcelona bring in Amorin just because he’s the best hip manager available? No they wouldn’t because 3-4-2-1 isn’t there system.

It’s crazy that we keeping hiring managers straight after each other where tactics are so different. The cry for a squad overhaul happens everytime. That wouldn’t be necessary if we had some form of linear tactics and shape.

I hate 3-4-3. It’s not United and the only time it worked in the Premier League was Conte’s Chelsea. The system has pushed out Garnacho and Rashford. Amad doesn’t get to be in his favoured role either. It doesn’t suit Mainoo or Bruno. So all of our promising players have been hindered by the shape. It doesn’t make any sense at all.
 
Players, Players, Players it has always been about the players, we have a mid table team of players throughout the years of bad transfers and bad contact extensions and slowly that has seen the decline of the team year on year, we have a manager that knows how to coach but can only coach the players he has to a certain level for the formation he has mastered, so either we sell players that don't fit the system and rebuild in his image or we sack and find someone that can get this player base to 7th or 8th and sack them in a year or 2 ad nauseum.
 
Hope he has the bollocks to drop Onana. He will keep making basic goalkeeping errors, it won’t change. I don’t rate Bayindir but at least he may improve with time.
 
Racing cars last time I heard.

As for Amorim - looked like a 39 year old completely out of his depth ever since he got here. A lot of fans being positive for the sake of it at first but more and more are starting to see the situation for what it is now.
Has he really?
 
What a crazy post this
I'm just saying what I'm seeing mate. I enjoy watching attacking football. Currently we're not doing much of that. The obvious reason for that is the formation. Switch to 4 at the back until we sign some good wing backs.
 
Midfield overrun as usual, pretty much like Ten Hag's was, that was another horrible watch sadly
 
People need to stop giving Amorim a free pass. While he’s undoubtedly a talented coach who knows his stuff, talent alone isn’t enough—it never has been. His job is to sell a vision to the players and inspire them to fight for it, and right now, that’s not happening. Forget systems and tactics for a moment—the fundamentals are about players looking motivated and having a clear sense of purpose. Right now, there’s no evidence that anything meaningful is being built with this team. Amorim needs to step up and show more—this isn’t good enough.

Or maybe it's the players. You could put a fecking gun to their heads and they wouldn't care. Some are thick enough to probably not even know what's happening.

Why can they show it against Arsenal and Liverpool? Do you think Amorim asked them to look lethargic today?
 
The squad is poor. But we don't have money to fix it. So where does this go

Very difficult question to answer that one.

In my opinion, we are going to have to try and get our recruitment to a level like Dortmund or Brighton etc.

Identify and sign players who are going to get big. But then when they do we wont be under pressure to sell them like a feeder club. We’ll have to suffer a bit in terms of expectation while they develop.

I mean, off the top of my head, we sniffed around Haaland, Caicedo and Bellingham when they were at Molde, Independiente and Birmingham. We didnt get them but it is the right approach. You see this lad Nypan about to go to Arsenal, we should be after him.

We’ve tried a decade of signing a handful of 40-80m players at a rate that it takes a manager 2or3 years to build a first 11. And then you get flops and it has financially ruined the club.

If we carry on that road we aren't ever getting out of what we have become. Amorim will be replaced by someone else who will be replaced by someone else whilst we stand still/go backwards