Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach

I'm starting to think he could be potentially the right manager but at the worst possible time. He clearly needs a rebuild to get his tactics to work, but we somehow can't afford that. We need a manager able to adapt to whatever shit he has to work with to mould it into something half decent. I have a feeling we're going to sell the players we can at Ruben's request, but they'll be the only players with any promise because they're the only ones anyone will want to buy, but then not be able to replace them with anything better because we still haven't proven ourselves capable of making sensible signings.
 
noodlehair said:
This is fantasy though. We aren't going to be replacing half the players in the summer because we are stuffed financially. It will be for the most part the same group of players, and you can't drill a system into them if they simply aren't suited to playing the way the manager wants in it.

I don't know where this idea comes from that if you keep forcing players to do something they're bad at for long enough, they will suddenly become good at it. How is that anything other than a ridiculously terrible idea?

Any sentence starting with "if Luke Shaw was fit" is a pointless one. If we had better players we'd be better - this is not a justification for managing the players you have badly.
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OK, so it sounds like you are saying that you want him to give up on his way of playing completely, not just for this season? As you say, he's not going to be be able to bring in loads of new players in the summer, and you believe that this current crop of players cannot be trained to play it. May as well sack him then?!

We already know that when he was offered the United job he asked if he could come at the end of the season. We said it's now or never, and it seems clear to me that he said 'OK, but I want to completely change the system and style of play, and that is going to be rocky'. He literally said as much in his first interview with Gary Nev, and was clearly given boardroom support to make Rashford persona non grata. What we are seeing on the pitch is exactly what he said and what we should have expected. Adapting to the players in the club is what most of our previous managers have tried to do, and where has that got the club?

I don't personally believe he will need to replace 'half the players', that was just a turn of phrase, I think with a few key changes this team will start to look a huge amount better. And that was my point about Luke Shaw - it wasn't an 'if we had better players we would be better' comment - I was pointing out that although it feels like we're miles away from the system working properly actually with either a rejuvenated Shaw (unlikely. but not impossible) or a new attacking fullback who will undoubtedly come this window or next, and a real striker it could all start to click into gear.

It baffles me that you and others seem to want him to use the same players in the same way that we have in the last few mediocre seasons?
 
I do feel for him.

I think he’ll be sacked by the summer and they’ll look to bring someone like Ancelotti in.

We probably need to spend £300-£400 million to make this 343 formation work

I can’t see this management structure having the time, patience or chequebook to make Amorims tenure a success.
 
Garethw said:
I do feel for him.

I think he’ll be sacked by the summer and they’ll look to bring someone like Ancelotti in.

We probably need to spend £300-£400 million to make this 343 formation work

I can’t see this management structure having the time, patience or chequebook to make Amorims tenure a success.
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Yeah, I mean, this management structure chose the manager. They new what type of system he played. They new he would need players to fit the system. I think in hindsight Amorim wished he'd stayed at Sporting. The now or never ulimatum from the management team was so arrogant - as most things are with this club.

I'm thinking Jim and his team have the most responsibility. How many have been involved in football? Cycling yes, boat racing yes. Not football.
 
Garethw said:
I do feel for him.

I think he’ll be sacked by the summer and they’ll look to bring someone like Ancelotti in.

We probably need to spend £300-£400 million to make this 343 formation work

I can’t see this management structure having the time, patience or chequebook to make Amorims tenure a success.
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There is no signs that he will be sacked. There is absolutely no chance someone like Ancelotti comes in either.

We dont need to spend 300-400m to make it work. You can get signings for under 50m. The only areas that need specialists are wing backs, which you definitely dont need 300m for.
 
romufc said:
There is no signs that he will be sacked. There is absolutely no chance someone like Ancelotti comes in either.

We dont need to spend 300-400m to make it work. You can get signings for under 50m. The only areas that need specialists are wing backs, which you definitely dont need 300m for.
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Why not? He managed Everton not that long ago
 
hellhunter said:
The board today has seemingly no clue what it wants to do tomorrow, I don't think that's something that can be counted on
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In what way? Thats your opinion.. they actually know what they want to do, you dont like it because they haven't spent 400m.
 
Garethw said:
I do feel for him.

I think he’ll be sacked by the summer and they’ll look to bring someone like Ancelotti in.

We probably need to spend £300-£400 million to make this 343 formation work

I can’t see this management structure having the time, patience or chequebook to make Amorims tenure a success.
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I think people need to stop obsessing about signings “to make a system work” and accept that we need to spend the same amount of money to turn a poor squad into a good one, whatever formation the new manager is hoping to use.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I think people need to stop obsessing about signings “to make a system work” and accept that we need to spend the same amount of money to turn a poor squad into a good one, whatever formation the new manager is hoping to use.
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Exactly. The squad is horrendous. It doesn't matter who is in charge or what tactic we play, the fact is that we need a massive overhaul no matter what.
 
We need a wing back and a striker, nothing else is majorly urgent to see progress. 1 attacking LWB and we can shift Dalot back to the right, you don't need 2 amazing wing backs straight away. 1 striker that scores consistently, taking the pressure off our younger strikers. That is not 300-400m and we would easily make top 6/7 with those signings and some more work on the training ground. That is progress at the moment. Gyokeres and Dorgu or similar is 100m or so, we have to be able to scrape that money together, even if it is through sales.
 
We're not going to hire Ancelotti ffs. I do think Amorim will be sacked if we're still playing like this by the end of February though.
 
romufc said:
In what way? Thats your opinion.. they actually know what they want to do, you dont like it because they haven't spent 400m.
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Nonsense, we're in this mess exactly because they have been spending like absolute idiots without showing any sign of planning or strategy
 
Blood Mage said:
We're not going to hire Ancelotti ffs. I do think Amorim will be sacked if we're still playing like this by the end of February though.
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Should never have been hired or brought in mid season if he’s binned off that soon to be honest. I’d lose the little faith and hope I had left in this new structure. Totally set up to fail.
 
I will actually laugh hard at redcafe if Amorim gets sacked and we get Ancelotti.

In October the same bitter posters will be spamming his thread with "clearly past it", "can't spend money to buy players for him", "Amorim wasn't as bad" and so on.

We spent years laughing at RAWK, Redcafe has become worse than the lowest moments on there.
 
hellhunter said:
Nonsense, we're in this mess exactly because they have been spending like absolute idiots without showing any sign of planning or strategy
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How have we spent like idiots? We have had 1 window under them and spent 200m and sold 100m worth, so a net spend of 100.

IF you think our mess is because of INEOS... I cant say much to that ignorance.
 
Judas said:
Should never have been hired or brought in mid season if he’s binned off that soon to be honest. I’d lose the little faith and hope I had left in this new structure. Totally set up to fail.
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Don't think they ever thought it would get this bad and to be fair neither did we. Everyone underestimated how wedded Amorim was to this one system and how little it suits our squad.
 
He is doing fine. He is taking huge decisions he has excluded players like Lindelof, Casemiro and Rashford so when we finally get them out and replace them we strengthen overall. He is saying the right things his attitude is brilliant and we are starting to see some flashes of good play.

We were performing abysmally before he came in, we are performing better now (especially in Europe) and he hasn’t had a signing yet.

We are fixing issues of the past slowly but surely by removing bloated wages and we are making things work (to a limited degree) with the chosen few that Amorim wants to go forward with and we have plenty of scope for players who aren’t involved to be replaced in the future.

Give him time.
 
McTerminator said:
He is doing fine. He is taking huge decisions he has excluded players like Lindelof, Casemiro and Rashford so when we finally get them out and replace them we strengthen overall. He is saying the right things his attitude is brilliant and we are starting to see some flashes of good play.

We were performing abysmally before he came in, we are performing better now (especially in Europe) and he hasn’t had a signing yet.

We are fixing issues of the past slowly but surely by removing bloated wages and we are making things work (to a limited degree) with the chosen few that Amorim wants to go forward with and we have plenty of scope for players who aren’t involved to be replaced in the future.

Give him time.
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You can list a lot of mitigating factors, but he's most certainly not doing fine.
 
Blood Mage said:
Don't think they ever thought it would get this bad and to be fair neither did we. Everyone underestimated how wedded Amorim was to this one system and how little it suits our squad.
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What are you on about? Amorim literally said it himself in his first interview and many times since. Why were you not expecting results to be all over the shop?
 
Rusholme Ruffian said:
What are you on about? Amorim literally said it himself in his first interview and many times since. Why were you not expecting results to be all over the shop?
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I was expecting erratic results and performances. We're not getting that though, we're getting consistently poor performances.
 
romufc said:
There is no signs that he will be sacked. There is absolutely no chance someone like Ancelotti comes in either.

We dont need to spend 300-400m to make it work. You can get signings for under 50m. The only areas that need specialists are wing backs, which you definitely dont need 300m for.
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We also need a top class striker and at least one top class midfielder.

The squad is shit. To make this team competitive will easily require a £300-£400 million overhaul.
 
We Are Manchester United said:
Yeah, I mean, this management structure chose the manager. They new what type of system he played. They new he would need players to fit the system. I think in hindsight Amorim wished he'd stayed at Sporting. The now or never ulimatum from the management team was so arrogant - as most things are with this club.

I'm thinking Jim and his team have the most responsibility. How many have been involved in football? Cycling yes, boat racing yes. Not football.
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It’s s as absolute shit show at the moment mate.
 
Garethw said:
We also need a top class striker and at least one top class midfielder.

The squad is shit. To make this team competitive will easily require a £300-£400 million overhaul.
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So you'd need those players regardless of formation right?
 
Blood Mage said:
I was expecting erratic results and performances. We're not getting that though, we're getting consistently poor performances.
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Did you not see the City or Liverpool games? To go from performances like those to the Bournemouth and Newcastle games is the definition of erratic. Plenty of other games where we've been in control for long periods but not managed to score, or conceded stupid goals. In the last month we've also knocked Arsenal out of the cup and are top 4 in the Europa League with an unbeaten record. Have a little patience!
 
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Rusholme Ruffian said:
Did you not see the City or Liverpool games? To go from those to performances like those to the Bournemouth and Newcastle games is the definition of erratic. Plenty of other games where we've been in control for long periods but not managed to score, or conceded stupid goals. In the last month we've also knocked Arsenal out of the cup and are top 4 in the Europa League with an unbeaten record. Have a little patience!
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Exactly, we have had games where we dont score a goal when we are on top and everytime the opponent has a 15-20 min spell they score.

Its one of those things that we need to overcome really.

Like Rangers for example, we dominated the second half, one mistake and boom we concede. Alot of games where we concede goals have come from mistakes from our players.
 
Devil81 said:
But in the process it would be nice to look a bit like a side and maybe push to win the Europa. I'm not against Amorim but I am for playing a system that suits the players we have until he has a side of players he's confident can carry out his tactics.

He's not going to do that though so we have to live with it and support him the best we can. It's a dreadful watch though.
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Yes, I’m all for short term pain for long term gain though. When I say long term I mean 2-3 years too. Far too often we’ve gone through this boom bust cycle of getting into the top 4 and then it falling apart again the following year. We need a manager who implements his own stamp and sets his own standards, and that takes a lot of time, especially when he’s inherited a shit squad.
 
Garethw said:
We also need a top class striker and at least one top class midfielder.

The squad is shit. To make this team competitive will easily require a £300-£400 million overhaul.
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With FFP in place now. No chance we can spend that sort of money again. We need to invest in better scouts and develop talent with a point to prove.
 
I feel for Amorim. These is almost zero attacking threat in this squad.

When you think of it, we could lose 3 attacking players this winter in Garnacho, Antony and Rashford and all 3 of them are out of form anyway.

Out centre forwards Zirkzee and Hojlund are not at the level the club needs right now.

Our wingbacks are not good at attacking, we have to play Dalot od LWB because we don't have a match fit wingback for almost year and a half considering Malacia's and Shaw's injuries. Mazraoui is not great at playing RWB.

Most of our central midfielders are currently struggling at the basic duties of their own position, let alone contribute to the attack.

The sad reality that one of of our best attacking players recently was a CB (Martinez) considering his assist vs Man City, goal vs Liverpool and an assist last night vs Rangers.

The only attacking players that are providing are Bruno and Amad.

Considering our transfer activity this winter so far, the club is not doing much this January to back the manager to solve some of these problems.
 
Garethw said:
I do feel for him.

I think he’ll be sacked by the summer and they’ll look to bring someone like Ancelotti in.

We probably need to spend £300-£400 million to make this 343 formation work

I can’t see this management structure having the time, patience or chequebook to make Amorims tenure a success.
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He needs to be flexible, he can tweaks things and make it more of a transition than a straight cut between two styles. I reckon his style can work, but it doesn't need to be all or nothing. A lot of the principles of his philosophy can be taught to the players no matter the positioning and formation. Lets get some points on the board, get a bit of a feel good vibe, and then revisit this... I feel like the greats have a level of flexibility in terms of getting the best out of their current squad and maybe that's something he needs to learn. He's still young...

I cant lie, the all or nothing approach has me nervous. We clean out these players and throw this season, then what happens if the system doesn't quite work out?
 
We'll be in a much better position once we move on Rashford, Anthony, Casemiro, Malacia and potentially Shaw and Lindelof. We'll be in a better position financially and then can work on getting the right players in to go with his system.

On a system so massively reliant on the wing backs being the right players we'll look crap until we solve the problem.
 
Turnip said:
I'm starting to think he could be potentially the right manager but at the worst possible time. He clearly needs a rebuild to get his tactics to work, but we somehow can't afford that. We need a manager able to adapt to whatever shit he has to work with to mould it into something half decent. I have a feeling we're going to sell the players we can at Ruben's request, but they'll be the only players with any promise because they're the only ones anyone will want to buy, but then not be able to replace them with anything better because we still haven't proven ourselves capable of making sensible signings.
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We dont need to rebuild to make his tactics work. We need to rebuild because the players we bought are shit coupled with a poor attitude. People jump ship so quickly and want a new manager, as if they have learned nothing in the past 10 years. What we need is a manager who cleans that mess but the problem is the club is broke thanks to stupid owners and we're in the middle of the season to make things even more difficult.
 
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