Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach

I think concentrating on the defensive lapes and goals conceded would be a mistake. I would be far more concerned by what's going on or more precisely not going on in the forward areas.

Our attacking play and chance creation is very very poor. And he keeps picking 5 genuine defenders and 2 essentially DM's. He has to drop the defensive WB's and pick at least one attacking wing back, or he needs to play Bruno in the deeper role so we at least have some creativity coming from somewhere.

He has to take the risk and drop a defensive player for an attack minded one. Because his 7 defensive players idea really isn't working at the moment.
 
You can see the cuts on his fingers in the post match press conference, must have punched it good…probably a old Sharp brand Jim must have brought in.
 
Great, now instead of adding some cheap options to our bench like Jonathan David, we need to spend it on a TV.

Or fire one of the cleaners.
 
People on here might be happy with Amorim saying publicly this is the worst Utd team in history and smashing tvs because they're angry, but the reality is this will make things significantly worse. I wasn't very happy when Amorim came out and made his press conference comments. Pretty much every time a manager publicly criticises their players, it goes badly and that manager doesn't last very long (not just at Utd, in general). Punching a tv will not only make the players question him, but it also shows a lack of control from Amorim. I'll be very surprised if Amorim isn't sacked before the end of the season at this rate. Results are probably going to keep getting worse.

I'm sure I'll get insulted by some on here. I was hopeful Amorim could change things, and really liked the way he handled his opening press conferences, but this is turning to shit imo.
 
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Others have said it, the fan in me enjoys him giving the squad both barrels, but stepping back I’m worried if he can get a response from a reliable 11 to get him through the season. I want him to get proper support, I want him to get to the summer but he won’t get there if results spiral. And the fact is that player power is still there and they can hide behind each other and the “sack the manager in case of emergency” default strategy.

There are certain players who will react strongly to this challange. One could argue it is a good strategy to flush out the chancers and ones with egos above their ability. This kind of feels like an extension of him changing starting first team only now he’s just hammering everyone and seeing what response gets.

But at some stage he has to start getting confidence up or it won’t matter what tactics he’s using. Is he known for these outbursts ? If not it possibly indicates pressure is getting to him which is understandable but concerning.

I hate that at pretty much any point in time since Ferguson left you can usually point out lack of effort , players downing tools or not up for it and a manager being hung out to dry by the squad. I’m sick of it and would sooner sell most of them , get relegated, then watch another manager on the scrapheap.

But I’d sooner bet on Amorim taking the fall cause that’s football.
 
marx_2 said:
Why then doesn’t he switch to talented youth players? Why is he sticking to Harry, Antony etc?
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Most of the talented youth players don't have the physicality to play in the PL yet, it would be men vs boys for the most part
 
Lentwood said:
Like I said, I think Mazraoui is "cheating" there...he wants to run forward, he's aware of Mitoma behind him...doesn't think Baleba will be able to make the pass...if he does...he assumes he will have the pace to recover and then...bam...goal.

Subtle...but that's my interpretation. I'm not saying Mazraoui was being outright lazy, I think he was being complacent, and I think that, given an opportunity, all of our players are consistently complacent, and that's why we suffer. We weren't complacent against Liverpool, Arsenal or City, and look at the difference. Same formation. Same players. Look at Zirkzee. Sort of closes down Baleba, with "sort of" being the key phrase. "I'll trot over here, pretend to press, he'll knock it sideways, job done". No. Not good enough. Amad is the only player in our team who seems to really enjoy pressing. I don't get it. I absolutely loved it personally, playing DMC, running about like a dog, snapping at heels, hoping to force a misplaced pass or get a toe on one to break-up play. You have to want it as much as you want to have the ball, if not more.

We're talking about formations but it's one long straight-ish ball over the top. You shouldn't be getting caught like that.
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I agree with this take on our players’ complacency in lower status matches.

So many times I see our team just going through the motions. The worst offender was always Rashford — any time he had to challenge for a header he would intentionally misjudge the flight and jump under the ball. But so many of them are at it in only slightly less subtle ways.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
I agree with this take on our players’ complacency in lower status matches.

So many times I see our team just going through the motions. The worst offender was always Rashford — any time he had to challenge for a header he would intentionally misjudge the flight and jump under the ball. But so many of them are at it in only slightly less subtle ways.
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The question is whether it’s effort or whether it’s pressure to win against weaker teams. Teams looking like they’ve lead in their boots can look lethargic, slow, disinterested and make mistakes.

The morons booing our own players are making it a theatre of nightmares. I mean it’s so mindlessly dumb thinking booing a team rock bottom on confidence will somehow lead us to a better place.

I don’t think people realise We really could hit a negative death spiral. I mean I wouldn’t bet on us beating anybody right now and while I’d hope that it improves, all the hysteria and negative stuff can become a self fulfilling prophecy.
 
Chumpsbechumps said:
The question is whether it’s effort or whether it’s pressure to win against weaker teams. Teams looking like they’ve lead in their boots can look lethargic, slow, disinterested and make mistakes.

The morons booing our own players are making it a theatre of nightmares. I mean it’s so mindlessly dumb thinking booing a team rock bottom on confidence will somehow lead us to a better place.

I don’t think people realise We really could hit a negative death spiral. I mean I wouldn’t bet on us beating anybody right now and while I’d hope that it improves, all the hysteria and negative stuff can become a self fulfilling prophecy.
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Essentially it's the pressure, they've proved they have the mindset to play a defensive way as shown in the games vs City, Liverpool and Arsenal, would fans accept playing that way against so called lesser teams at home, probably not and we don't have the personnel, especially in WB positions to play more expansively, until we do not much is going to change
 
crossy1686 said:
I doubt they will. He’s the guy INEOS have picked and he’s saying stuff that only managers who have the total backing of the board say.
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He's new in the job and has nothing to lose saying these things. I'm glad he's saying them! They need to be said. It might be different in 6 months time if results are still bad pressure is on him.
 
Idxomer said:
If you see the play from the start, there was good press from the right side that forced the ball to Brighton's right-sided centre-back. Bruno was going to continue the press but looked over and Dalot was nowhere to be found to help with the press. He dropped back and the team started retreating. De Ligt stepped forward to track Pedro, which made the long ball an easy option for them. Dalot was also nowhere to be found again for Minteh's tap-in.
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I'm referring to the height of our line but also the press is quite half hearted - that is likely more personnel based but there was virtually no pressure on the passer.
 
Lentwood said:
Like I said, I think Mazraoui is "cheating" there...he wants to run forward, he's aware of Mitoma behind him...doesn't think Baleba will be able to make the pass...if he does...he assumes he will have the pace to recover and then...bam...goal.

Subtle...but that's my interpretation. I'm not saying Mazraoui was being outright lazy, I think he was being complacent, and I think that, given an opportunity, all of our players are consistently complacent, and that's why we suffer. We weren't complacent against Liverpool, Arsenal or City, and look at the difference. Same formation. Same players. Look at Zirkzee. Sort of closes down Baleba, with "sort of" being the key phrase. "I'll trot over here, pretend to press, he'll knock it sideways, job done". No. Not good enough. Amad is the only player in our team who seems to really enjoy pressing. I don't get it. I absolutely loved it personally, playing DMC, running about like a dog, snapping at heels, hoping to force a misplaced pass or get a toe on one to break-up play. You have to want it as much as you want to have the ball, if not more.

We're talking about formations but it's one long straight-ish ball over the top. You shouldn't be getting caught like that.
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I look at it as if I'm the CB, I want Maz where he is. Ideally I guess when he sees Baleba eyeing up the pass he could give Mitoma a bump - our players are way too clean apart from Licha/Ugarte - but otherwise unless he drops off early I think he's just too slow. Pace/Athelticism is a big issue in our back line which Amorim can't help[ I guess, but having CBs step out and into midfield seems like it might exacerbate the problem.

I think we all agree the press isn't good enough from the front men, I guess the question is if Zirkzee is to blame because the passer is a midfielder who has dropped in, surely that then should push a 10 forwards? These are probably issues the players think themselves, the second goal you see Mainoo and Yoro go to the same man and then leave Ugarte with 2. I just don't think they really get where to be in many situations.
 
It’s not exactly Clough punching Roy Keane or Sir Alex kicking a boot at Becks but we still have a long season to go yet. I hope the players react positively rather than sink any lower.
 
Worst team ever stuff aside, the more interesting part of the press conference is him saying certain players were doing whatever they wanted at the end of the game (instead of whatever the plan was) and that was going to stop. Wonder who he’s referring to, but, either way, if the players aren’t listening then who cares if he alienates them. They either need to be moved on, shamed into being professional, or they fire the manager again and find someone that can work with players who think they know better than the coach. He’s got to try and alpha male them. Will it work? Probably not. United can’t afford the fallout financially.
 
With the exception of Maguire, Amad and perhaps Ugarte - he is not playing to one of his player’s strengths I would say. He has come in with this formation that hardly anyone else plays that requires a complete overhaul of the squad (feck them anyway, to be fair) and he has put himself and the hierarchy in a position where it will take an incredible amount in order to justify this.

I wasn’t particularly keen on Amorim, which I voiced here as soon as Ten Hag left, although I did say that it was solely due to this formation. I don’t buy this notion that blue isn’t blue, and actually we’re all just stupid because systems don’t matter, just principles. Majority of our players are not suited to the role asked of them, aside from their problems of probably not being good enough anyway.

Conté has often used this wing-back system in his career, but he’s not so stubborn to it and will probably win the league with Napoli playing a back 4. I fear for the amount of damage that will already be done by the time we get a few players in. The psychological damage of such a disastrous season may take some repairing.
 
Ayoba said:
Mods, can we have a poll on who we think cried during Amorims tirade?
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Bear in mind it doesn't specify what kind of tears. Amorim might literally have been creasing up at how bad some of the players were.

Sources close to my mum's brother whose friend is a janitor at a library near OT and knows a guy with a season ticket whose wife once dated Prunier, told me he made them stand in a circle and shout out their transfer fees when he pointed at them. He took about 5 minutes to stop laughing after Antony, then he starting weeping with laughter when he pointed at Casemiro, he couldn't even bring himself to look Oanan in the eye and the TV was not smashed in anger - he was pounding the wall laughing so hard and accidentally hit it. Apparently once he had calmed down he pointed to the tactics board as he wanted to explain something and Maguire, who was next to it, thought he was talking to him and shouted out £85m which set Amorim off again.

Footage from an iphone here:
 
Rozay said:
With the exception of Maguire, Amad and perhaps Ugarte - he is not playing to one of his player’s strengths I would say. He has come in with this formation that hardly anyone else plays that requires a complete overhaul of the squad (feck them anyway, to be fair) and he has put himself and the hierarchy in a position where it will take an incredible amount in order to justify this.

I wasn’t particularly keen on Amorim, which I voiced here as soon as Ten Hag left, although I did say that it was solely due to this formation. I don’t buy this notion that blue isn’t blue, and actually we’re all just stupid because systems don’t matter, just principles. Majority of our players are not suited to the role asked of them, aside from their problems of probably not being good enough anyway.

Conté has often used this wing-back system in his career, but he’s not so stubborn to it and will probably win the league with Napoli playing a back 4. I fear for the amount of damage that will already be done by the time we get a few players in. The psychological damage of such a disastrous season may take some repairing.
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Formations aside many have been calling out our so called better players for not being suited to any type of proactive system for years. Littered with wasteful inefficient types. Getting the best of some of these players is not a pressing concern. Basically their time of reckoning is here.
 
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Imo going to 3 in the back from 4 in the back changes the entire tactical framework which you will now be committed to going forward. It can either be variants of 343 or 352 (532 depending on how you look at it).

We were built to play 4231, 433 or maybe even 442. That now goes out the window if we give Amorim time to build his own squad. There are a lot of misfits and players missing in key positions right now. Garnacho, Rashford and Antony can only play on the wings. We have no natural wing backs and we lack the necessary physicality and vision in midfield. A class striker was already a problem.

If we at one point fill all the necessary positions with players who are natural there and it still doesn’t work, what are we going to do? Sack Amorim and find another manager who deploys 3 in the back or do we find a manager who only plays 4 in the back and will have to sell and buy new players all over again.

I sometimes wonder if our leadership has thought the hire of Amorim through.
 
Waywestofthere said:
Worst team ever stuff aside, the more interesting part of the press conference is him saying certain players were doing whatever they wanted at the end of the game (instead of whatever the plan was) and that was going to stop. Wonder who he’s referring to, but, either way, if the players aren’t listening then who cares if he alienates them. They either need to be moved on, shamed into being professional, or they fire the manager again and find someone that can work with players who think they know better than the coach. He’s got to try and alpha male them. Will it work? Probably not. United can’t afford the fallout financially.
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The one player I noticed who was clearly not in their usual position was Bruno, who instinctively dropped into the back line at times to get on the ball. Not sure if that's what Amorim was referring to.
 
We forced him to leave sporting mid season. The least we could do is support him and back him. He didn’t want to come until end of the season.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
I look at it as if I'm the CB, I want Maz where he is.
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Two things with that though...

1. Maybe in a traditional back four, but Amorim explicitly said afterwards that he'd highlighted Brighton's propensity to make that exact movement - and it seems we just weren't alive to it, 5 minutes into the game.

Sometimes teams will attempt to do this (pin / isolate our wing backs) and in those games...sorry, but it's not going to be fun for Dalot and Mazraoui, they're going to have to be ultra-diligent, defend more than they attack and take one for the team.

2. What the CB wants is irrelevant. What Amorim wants is key. Reason I highlight that, though it seems petty, is it's a real bugbear of mine when the likes of Carragher, Neville and Keane say things like "if I'm playing with him, I'm telling him XYZ". Not how football works now. You're a cog in a machine, and you do the job you're in the team to do. You don't arbitrarily take it upon yourself to ask a WB to tuck in or a midfielder to tuck in or whatever, that then impacts the entire team.
 
Greck said:
Formations aside many have been calling out our so called better players for not being suited to any type of proactive system for years. Littered with wasteful inefficient types. Getting the best of some of these players is not a pressing concern. Basically their time of reckoning is here.
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Well a player like Garnacho, for example, who had started the season putting up the best numbers of our forward players has immediately been hung out to dry because now apparently he needs to be Zidane and not the direct winger he’s always been. Our captain has no proper role in this team either. Our breakout star from last season is drowning in this midfield set up as he needs to play in a midfield 3, not 2. Dalot, probably our best and most consistent performer last season has been hung out to dry too.

Then even if you are fed up with our existing players, even the new ones are struggling. Mazraoui, a right back, and at a push - a left back his whole career has come in, been an absolute revelation and then now suddenly, he can’t fit into the team anymore either because of some weirdo set-up we became so hell bent on overnight. Leny Yoro, one of the best young centre halves in the world would have thought he was coming here to play in a partnership, with a right back outside of him, but now finds himself playing a hybrid centre half/right back role and again - hung out to dry as a result.

Our players certainly need to have a look at themselves, but many of them have not really been given a chance by how we are trying to go about things. Replacing all of them with the requisite quality will be a huge task, and some of them will need to go due to not being good enough, but a number need to go because all of a sudden, they ‘don’t fit’ anymore.

We have become a team that plays 5 defenders now and I seem to be the only person who has a problem with that. Others are still burying their heads stating that formations don’t matter - but the fact is, if you play Dalot, De Ligt, Maguire, Martinez and Mazraoui in the same lineup, what you have is 5 defenders, whether or not you try and tell Dalot to push forward a bit. He’s been a defender for years. As has Mazraoui.
 
Woziak said:
The irony is most of these players won two trophies under ETH and were ‘Moments FC’ now they are just ‘Not Bothered FC’

I was seriously worried about Amorim, not because I don’t think he’s a great young coach but more because I thought he was untested in EPL and major European football. This job might have come 3 or 4 years to early and he should have gone manage West Ham first and got them into the CL/EL regularly before he came here?

At 39 Ruben can get away with his clever words and reverse psychology with younger players looking to rise through the Football hierarchy, however with players like Casemiro, Rashford, Shaw, Mount Bruno, MDL, Eriksen, Mazraoui, Onana, Evans, they’ve won bigger tournaments or been involved in bigger games they not impressed by his Portuguese CV, even Mainoo and Garnaucho are looking at his system, thinking that won’t better my career, and we are not wining anything with this muppet when he throws us under the bus by saying it’s the worst team in United History but 9 months ago we beat the best club side at the time in the FA CUP.

I said it and I meant it Conte wanted the United job, his coveted for almost a decade and he would have been the right man to get the job, before ETH he would have done his 2/3 years but turned the players into warriors and he was more flexible to either play 343,352, 3421 system but interestingly he’s playing a lot of 433 with Napoli and they are top of Serie A right now, a much better league than the Portuguese league to draw a conclusion of how good your coach is?

Conte is the only coach to win the EPL with 3 at the back yet we didn’t even interview him ?
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Your takes get worse and worse. Conte ffs :lol:
 
Plant0x84 said:
My manager! :devil:

Who the feck was crying?! fecking babies.
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Not sure, man.

Tables flipped and people crying.

A rollicking is well overdue, but do I want a United manager who behaves like I do when I lose at fifa/pes/life?

Oh yes, I do. I really do!
 
DJ_21 said:
Wonder which players shed a tear :lol:
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I’ve been saying this for weeks, the Hagster’s emotional damage on these players is not recoverable. They’re sitting in the changing room crying because they just don’t believe they can play for this club anymore. The only way is up from rock bottom so let’s hope this is it for some of them.
 
JonnyIreland said:
I’m totally okay with him trying this tactic, put a rocket the team -let’s hope it works. It’s a risky game though, it could backfire if they decide to “down tools” for the millionth time.
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What’s he got to lose? They down tools and he gets them replaced. He try’s to appease them and they get him fired in two seasons anyway. Might as we’ll burn it all down in the first few months and see what the reaction is.
 
I'll stick to Amorim this season no matter what. The purge was long overdue, and I've written this season off long time before he came. But I expect great things next season otherwise I'd be furious with him.
 
Lentwood said:
Two things with that though...

1. Maybe in a traditional back four, but Amorim explicitly said afterwards that he'd highlighted Brighton's propensity to make that exact movement - and it seems we just weren't alive to it, 5 minutes into the game.

Sometimes teams will attempt to do this (pin / isolate our wing backs) and in those games...sorry, but it's not going to be fun for Dalot and Mazraoui, they're going to have to be ultra-diligent, defend more than they attack and take one for the team.

2. What the CB wants is irrelevant. What Amorim wants is key. Reason I highlight that, though it seems petty, is it's a real bugbear of mine when the likes of Carragher, Neville and Keane say things like "if I'm playing with him, I'm telling him XYZ". Not how football works now. You're a cog in a machine, and you do the job you're in the team to do. You don't arbitrarily take it upon yourself to ask a WB to tuck in or a midfielder to tuck in or whatever, that then impacts the entire team.
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I agree with everything I’ve read that you’ve written the last page or so.

Re point 2 this is so accurate, cog in a machine is basically bang on, I’d say especially in defence. And it’s survive or die in amorims system, the way yoro was getting rinsed the other day for speed you’d click on to that straight away even in Sunday league and adjust or put someone over there to help. Yoro just got left to it, it was terrifying :lol:
 
VP89 said:
Thats fine but the team themselves were not as bad as they are now on general results.
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Where were they when ETH was sacked? Where, according to statistics, should we have finioshed last season?

If you know the answers to those, you will know that we wers as bad.
 
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