Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach

[pocco]

So both he and the club were desperate to move Rashford on with the knowledge (terrible decision at this point in the season imo) that they weren't going to sign any replacements? Did the club assure him of the opposite and fail him? Højlund Zirkzee Garnacho Amad is a terribly underpowered forward line for the PL.

We're playing terribly, outclassed by most teams and our forwards struggle to score. 5 PL goals combined between Højlund and Zirkzee, 3 for Garnacho. Finishing in the top half will be a great achievement. Goodluck to Ruben, because he's going to need it to even survive till June.

Add Mount, Bruno and Mainoo to that list of forwards, because they can all play at 10. So 7 players for 3 positions.

 

[fergiewherearethou]

I don't see how he's going to succeed here anymore. It's clear that he needs a very specific set of players to play his best football, which we don't know to be successful in a big league anyway, and it'd take a major squad overhaul to get us to that point. An overhaul we are not ready for and we probably are not capable of conducting.

Exactly my thought also, I haven't followed Amorim's path to become successful at Sporting, but whatever he does here, it looks completely unsustainable or even disastrous, looking at the results and the way we play. The canyon between where we are now and where we should be is so big, that only a major change in terms of personnel and tactics/approach must happen quick and in different stages in order to at least hope that anything good can happen.

I really don't care about systems anymore, if it's 343, 352, 361, 3421 etc. It's just the fact that we play absolutely nothing and we still rely on moments of brilliance from players to win the occasional game.

 

[JPRouve]

Ok let's say Amorim is yet another managerial mistake (which I kind of agree). Who brought him in? Who made the HW prior signing him? Cause I assure you he's been using that same system since almost the beginning of time and he's also known to be very stubborn about it.

What is your point? I have nothing good to say about his bosses and the people that hired him, I have zero faith in them. But that's beside the point, the fact that I don't trust them doesn't mean that I shouldn't judge Amorim's job and don't expect to see gradual improvements.

 

[MadDogg]

His system is completely different to ETH's which makes ETH's signings poorly suited into Amorim's system. I know its frustrating but that's unfortunately how things are. Hence why serious clubs who are run by serious men would have hired a manager whose style is closer to ETH's. Liverpool for example went for Slot whose philosophy fits the Klopp's team like a glove.

IDeots spoke about that as well (ie shifting from one style to another) and yet as most things with Ideots there seem a gulf between what they say and what they actually do.

That's all well and good when the current system is working and the new guy only needs to make small adjustments to keep it working with his similar style.

It's not so easy when the current system is utterly broken, with a significant amount of aspects that are completely opposite to what almost all successful teams are doing. Nothing that was close to ETH's system would have bought any success, so it's completely irrelevant to where we actually want to be.

An argument can definitely be made that we should have bought in someone that could do more of a mid-ground in the short term, that would stay with something similar but just slowly improve different aspects bit by bit until after a couple of seasons we'd be in a completely different place. Or even that the club could have signed one manager for a year or two to start moving us the right way before they then sacked and replaced them with another who was more specialised (such as Amorim), making it easier for the second guy. Of course, the fans and media would have had an absolute fit if Man Utd sacked a manager before everything fell apart, which makes the second option very difficult.

Instead, the club decided to go for someone who was quite specialised straight away. Which did make it more likely we would struggle in the short team, but the hope is that it will get us to where we want to be faster.

 

[LordSpud]

Clearly written off the season with the hope of winning EL. Presume Rubes will get his Swedish striker and possibly the rb, and possibly more in the summer., with the approval of INEOS and Glazers.
Ludicrous knee jerkers here writing the boss off after 3 months with next to no reinforcements. Some people have the attention span of goldfish

Did your attention span forget that the club hasnt got the funds for all those?

 

[KStandBarmyArmy1993]

I imagine the first thing an experienced manager would do is try to stem the bleeding. Get the players in their best positions, play compact at the back, and try to get Bruno on the ball as much as possible near the opposition box. It's not going to turn us into world beaters but it also probably stops us losing every home game.

I think Amorim made a strategic mistake in trying to overhaul everything in one go. Wait until the next pre-season to make the radical changes.

Yep. I agree with this 100%

And, again, I'll also add that fans are being treated like shite for the privilege of watching this garbage.

You can't blame Amorim for what he has inherited. You can blame for being too stubborn to change tactics that clearly aren't working with this current bunch.

This is especially true as he probably knew that he wasn't getting many expensive additions. If he he was told otherwise, there's suddenly a whole different to be had.

 

[bgoodall]

Not knocking him but I wonder if a formation change would bring about more positive performances?

 

[Drainy]

Not knocking him but I wonder if a formation change would bring about more positive performances?

A switch back to 4-2-3-1 with Casemiro and Ugarte in midfield would win us more games yes, but then in the summer when we try to get the new gameplay rolling there would be more behavioural issues and everyone will be behind on development and understand in the new system

 

[silvercre]

No. People can easily see he is good. Turned lots of players into profit. Won with very attacking style. Is very charismatic. The gaslighting is because everyone was deluded with eth, and now are questioning every thing, all the time.

Its harder to accept the club hired an awful manager 3 years ago. And made a complete revamp of the team, buying worse than we had. Spending more than 700 million. But its the truth, nonetheless.

This, exactly.
Some people being afraid that the same will happen, if they buy Amorim some new players.
Heh if I remember in first months of ETH "we are so back".
For sure the mistakes of the past 10 years need to be avoided, another example is repeating Martial with Højlund, forever hoping that he may come good.
ETH really messed up with insisting to get players that there were doubts if they were good or if they are worth that much. But it doesn't mean that the same could happen with Amorim.

Lately there is much negativity, Dorgu transfer the biggest example.

 

[devilish]

What is your point? I have nothing good to say about his bosses and the people that hired him, I have zero faith in them. But that's beside the point, the fact that I don't trust them doesn't mean that I shouldn't judge Amorim's job and don't expect to see gradual improvements.

I don't think that Amorim was the right person for us at that given moment in time. I do rate his man management and his ruthlessness but I was fully aware that he'll require an overhaul of the squad as this squad was ill suited to his system. That's not me just saying it but the likes of Liverpool and City as well. Both were interested in him but ultimately moved away because they couldn't afford such overhaul in such short period of time. Yet somehow we do. A serious club would have kept RVN as interim (or went with the likes of Potter as interim) and then they would have brought a manager in the summer while taking into account the players we've got.

Having said that I refuse to judge Amorim at this point. He inherited an unbalanced squad which is ill suited to his game and lacks discipline and which, in my opinion, got weaker in the January. It didn't help that he came mid way in the season which is the worst time for a manager with differing views to the previous manager to come in.

INEOS must decide what they want. This squad seems locked around a boring counter attacking football, something SAF implemented and no manager was able to get away from. INEOS can either embrace that style which would see us flirt between 2nd and 10th but is cost effective or they could break everything up as quickly as possible so that previous negative traits inherited from the old guard aren't learnt by the new guys. That would be costly. What INEOS are currently doing is the equivalent of someone walking into one of these ultra expensive private jet seller offices with just 10 euros in his pockets and expecting to buy the best private jet around. It ain't happening and will make him look silly in the process

 

[JPRouve]

I'm maybe beating a dead horse and it's very good that many wants to show patience but my point isn't to not be patient, it's to be able to identify whether a manager is worth the patience. The situation isn't ideal that's a fact but is the manager ideal long term? Is the manager showing traits that make him an ideal long term option? To me there are two key characteristics when it comes to long term success, the ability to improve less than ideal situations and the ability to adapt to what you have, managers that can't do either or both of these things fail at a good level.

Now people may disagree with the half season timeline and think that it should be 12 months, I'm fine with that but it's extremely risky to back a manager financially this summer if there is no clear sign of improvements between January and June.

 

[RonaldoVII]

A switch back to 4-2-3-1 with Casemiro and Ugarte in midfield would win us more games yes, but then in the summer when we try to get the new gameplay rolling there would be more behavioural issues and everyone will be behind on development and understand in the new system

At least then we'd have a month of training sessions rather than 1 session every week or whatever we have now

 

[devilish]

That's all well and good when the current system is working and the new guy only needs to make small adjustments to keep it working with his similar style.

It's not so easy when the current system is utterly broken, with a significant amount of aspects that are completely opposite to what almost all successful teams are doing. Nothing that was close to ETH's system would have bought any success, so it's completely irrelevant to where we actually want to be.

An argument can definitely be made that we should have bought in someone that could do more of a mid-ground in the short term, that would stay with something similar but just slowly improve different aspects bit by bit until after a couple of seasons we'd be in a completely different place. Or even that the club could have signed one manager for a year or two to start moving us the right way before they then sacked and replaced them with another who was more specialised (such as Amorim), making it easier for the second guy. Of course, the fans and media would have had an absolute fit if Man Utd sacked a manager before everything fell apart, which makes the second option very difficult.

Instead, the club decided to go for someone who was quite specialised straight away. Which did make it more likely we would struggle in the short team, but the hope is that it will get us to where we want to be faster.

I think its very possible to slowly nudge the squad into success by hiring managers who share the same vision (not the same man managerial style). Some might say that this is the best way to success and I believe that's what Ashworth (who ironically was the most senior football person at the club) was planning at the club and what City did by first bringing in Mancini, then Pellegrini and after Pep. Brighton did the same with Potter, De Zerbi and the kid they got from Germany

INEOS didn't like that and went for Amorim instead. Well if you want a revolutionary manager then you better dig deep in your pockets.

 

[Sarni]

I'm maybe beating a dead horse and it's very good that many wants to show patience but my point isn't to not be patient, it's to be able to identify whether a manager is worth the patience. The situation isn't ideal that's a fact but is the manage ideal long term? Is the manager showing traits that make him an ideal long term option? To me there are two key characteristics when it comes to long term success, the ability to improve less than ideal situations and the ability to adapt to what you have, managers that can't do either or both of these things fail at a good level.

Now people may disagree with the half season timeline and think that it should be 12 months, I'm fine with that but it's extremely risky to back a manager financially this summer if there is no clear sign of improvements between January and June.

The thing I absolutely hated about ten Hag debate last year is people claiming he needs every single player available for his system to work, and he can't possibly play good football when a couple of them are out. Like Martinez was so essential to our system that not having him basically made it impossible for us to look acceptable.

It seems that this may have actually become even more prominent for Amorim who will need all his players to be adaptable into a certain system, one that is so unique that he's possibly the only manager in the world that can play exclusively that system... so we will basically be condemned to always be in a precarious position where 1-2 injuries could derail our season and turn us from a good team (if we ever become that, and it probably won't be for a while) into a team that can be beaten by virtually anybody.

Though I like his character and think he has the potential to become great, I am not convinced that gambling everything on him is the right move... He hasn't proven himself outside Portugal, hasn't won major trophies, it's not like we would be supporting someone who has proven that he can do the job at this level. At the same time I don't really see any other pathway to success either. We appear completely doomed.

 

[devilish]

The thing I absolutely hated about ten Hag debate last year is people claiming he needs every single player available for his system to work, and he can't possibly play good football when a couple of them are out. Like Martinez was so essential to our system that not having him basically made it impossible for us to look acceptable.

It seems that this may have actually become even more prominent for Amorim who will need all his players to be adaptable into a certain system, one that is so unique that he's possibly the only manager in the world that can play exclusively that system... so we will basically be condemned to always be in a precarious position where 1-2 injuries could derail our season and turn us from a good team (if we ever become that, and it probably won't be for a while) into a team that can be beaten by virtually anybody.

Though I like his character and think he has the potential to become great, I am not convinced that gambling everything on him is the right move... He hasn't proven himself outside Portugal, hasn't won major trophies, it's not like we would be supporting someone who has proven that he can do the job at this level. At the same time I don't really see any other pathway to success either. We appear completely doomed.

Amorim's system is very similar to Xabi Alonso's and Inzaghi's. Its also similar to Tuchel's as well. But yes its a bit niche and the squad we've got is ill suited to his game

 

[Dannn411]

For sure this team can play much better than it is currently doing and for that the manager must take some blame.

I have said it before and i'll say it again. A good manager should be able to put out a good product with ANY 11 available at his disposal. Plain and simple. You shouldn't need 15 players for your team to look good. You might need some players for your team to reach a high level but there should be a base level of good performance in all your teams if you are truly a good manager. So if Amorim can't get this squad to perform better than fecking relegation level that is an indictment on both him and the people who selected him.

 

[JPRouve]

I don't think that Amorim was the right person for us at that given moment in time. I do rate his man management and his ruthlessness but I was fully aware that he'll require an overhaul of the squad as this squad was ill suited to his system. That's not me just saying it but the likes of Liverpool and City as well. Both were interested in him but ultimately moved away because they couldn't afford such overhaul in such short period of time. Yet somehow we do. A serious club would have kept RVN as interim (or went with the likes of Potter as interim) and then they would have brought a manager in the summer while taking into account the players we've got.

Having said that I refuse to judge Amorim at this point. He inherited an unbalanced squad which is ill suited to his game and lacks discipline and which, in my opinion, got weaker in the January. It didn't help that he came mid way in the season which is the worst time for a manager with differing views to the previous manager to come in.

INEOS must decide what they want. This squad seems locked around a boring counter attacking football, something SAF implemented and no manager was able to get away from. INEOS can either embrace that style which would see us flirt between 2nd and 10th but is cost effective or they could break everything up as quickly as possible so that previous negative traits inherited from the old guard aren't learnt by the new guys. That would be costly. What INEOS are currently doing is the equivalent of someone walking into one of these ultra expensive private jet seller offices with just 10 euros in his pockets and expecting to buy the best private jet around. It ain't happening and will make him look silly in the process

Okay, so you refuse to judge him. When do you start judging and on what aspects? As far as I know managers are allowed to coach players, they are allowed to teach new roles and positions, top managers often change the roles and positions of players in order to fit new roles that they see in players, they unearth potential where it didn't seem to exist.

For some reason this morning, i was thinking about how Amorim could work around the lack of wingback while roughly keeping the long term structure of his 3421. And Bielsa's idea of a 3331 appeared, we'd need to fill one of the wide central midfielder roles with someone that isn't on paper sutited but it's an option. That's why to me there is no excuse, we are making terrible excuses for people that don't deserve it because they are not trying.

 

[Drainy]

At least then we'd have a month of training sessions rather than 1 session every week or whatever we have now

And all the players who benefit more personally from playing in 4-2-3-1 to complain and drag the new system down until when we hit bad form and people start crying saying 'we had better results before, the new system sucks' and the belief goes.

 

[Hughie77]

He said your going to suffer and suffer you will, I realy thought they'd try to get a striker of some sort through the door in January, instead got rid of 3 players and to not try and get a replacement for Rashford is criminal really.
Amorin has his work cut out and I can't see anything bar losses or Draws and the odd win..
Go out in FA cup maybe next round , get about 40pts in league and Europa league I thought we could win that who knows still could .

 

[JPRouve]

Amorim's system is very similar to Xabi Alonso's and Inzaghi's. Its also similar to Tuchel's as well. But yes its a bit niche and the squad we've got is ill suited to his game

You see that's the funny part. Tuchel has largely been a 4231 manager but because he adapted to what he had with Chelsea people are now stating that he is a 343 manager. Tuchel and Amorim don't have similar systems, Tuchel has one system that is a bit like Amorim's but he has many other.

 

[Rusholme Ruffian]

https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/s/oukfwPQ7Ci

For anyone who is quite rightly wondering how many home league matches, including Division 1, it took for Ferguson to lose five, which is hopefully a more balanced and perceptive figure, the answer is 49.

feck me.

Absolutely pointless comparison, but if you want to go there then you'll also know that Fergie's United finished 11th, 13th and 11th in 3 of his first 4 seasons as well. Different times mate.

 

[macheda14]

I dont believe Amorim should have been appointed in the first place nor do I believe that a manager with only 1 way of playing Football should be given funds for an expensive squad rebuild as once his only way of playing is found out we'll be back to square 1 having to hire another new manager who will want to bring his own players.

As I said if we lose to Leicester on Friday then INEOS have a big decision to make, do they keep him and risk us having no European Football next season thus being unable to provide the funds he needs for his rebuild or do they let him go and bring in someone else to give us a fighting chance of gaining European qualification through the Europa League?

I mean I don’t think we will be personally. The two players we’ve been linked with / bought Dorgu and Quenda for the wing back positions are comfortable in playing multiple roles. He prefers his wing backs to basically be wingers anyway.

The two positions that really need filling are Striker and another midfielder which we need two of anyway. And some upgrades in CB over time. Again if we end up with too many CBs they’ll all have been playing and so easier to sell if we need to cull.

Too much is being made into how difficult it would be to move away from his system with the squad.

We went unbeaten in the Europa so I don’t think that’s as doom and gloom as you think.

A little bit of patience and maybe not caring quite as much about this season will do you wonders.

We’ll be fine.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

You see that's the funny part. Tuchel has largely been a 4231 manager but because he adapted to what he had with Chelsea people are now stating that 343 manager. Tuchel and Amorim don't have similar systems, Tuchel has one system that is a bit like Amorim's but he has many other.

Xabi Alonso has also played 4 at the back at times this season. Almost like good managers change it up depending on the players they have.

 

[JPRouve]

Absolutely pointless comparison, but if you want to go there then you'll also know that Fergie's United finished 11th, 13th and 11th in 3 of his first 4 seasons as well. Different times mate.

You also need to know that Fergie improved drastically the performances of the team during his first 18 months and then ovehauled the club from top to bottom. SAF got time and support because he initially showed that he was worth it. The times weren't actually different, unsuccesful managers were sacked left, right and center back then.

 

[devilish]

You see that's the funny part. Tuchel has largely been a 4231 manager but because he adapted to what he had with Chelsea people are now stating that he is a 343 manager. Tuchel and Amorim don't have similar systems, Tuchel has one system that is a bit like Amorim's but he has many other.

True that's why I separated it from the other two. Though I admit I should have written that post better

 

[UnitedSofa]

I imagine the first thing an experienced manager would do is try to stem the bleeding. Get the players in their best positions, play compact at the back, and try to get Bruno on the ball as much as possible near the opposition box. It's not going to turn us into world beaters but it also probably stops us losing every home game.

I think Amorim made a strategic mistake in trying to overhaul everything in one go. Wait until the next pre-season to make the radical changes.

Yep. I agree with this 100%

And, again, I'll also add that fans are being treated like shite for the privilege of watching this garbage.

You can't blame Amorim for what he has inherited. You can blame for being too stubborn to change tactics that clearly aren't working with this current bunch.

This is especially true as he probably knew that he wasn't getting many expensive additions. If he he was told otherwise, there's suddenly a whole different to be had.

I don’t particularly agree with this, why would you bring him in to only play the same was that the previous manager played.

The players are suited to a 4231 which was shit and is what got EtH the sack.

So you bring him in now and get him to force them to learn the system & suffer now as he said at the start of the reign & get the fruits of your labour next season.

Problem of just sticking with what we know “works” - which is what EtH did, - you don’t go back to your system, EtH famously didn’t play his own way because the players couldn’t do it and he simply gave up. Which Amorim isn’t doing which I applaud.

There’s a reason why Amorim wanted to start in the Summer and we’re all seeing why. It’s a difficult system to learn and requires lots of training, which he hasn’t had when he took over as there was lots of midweek games.

It will change in time I’m sure of it, especially now we have Dorgu. A lot of the issues is that the wingbacks don’t get up and down the pitch quick enough, should see our CF’s scoring more as rhe wingbacks would often whip it in to Gyokeres for a tap in or an easy shot. Which is what a lot of Gyokeres goals were under Amorim, because the wingbacks got into attacking positions quickly.

 

[dubplate warrior]

I don't think that Amorim was the right person for us at that given moment in time. I do rate his man management and his ruthlessness but I was fully aware that he'll require an overhaul of the squad as this squad was ill suited to his system. That's not me just saying it but the likes of Liverpool and City as well. Both were interested in him but ultimately moved away because they couldn't afford such overhaul in such short period of time. Yet somehow we do. A serious club would have kept RVN as interim (or went with the likes of Potter as interim) and then they would have brought a manager in the summer while taking into account the players we've got.

Having said that I refuse to judge Amorim at this point. He inherited an unbalanced squad which is ill suited to his game and lacks discipline and which, in my opinion, got weaker in the January. It didn't help that he came mid way in the season which is the worst time for a manager with differing views to the previous manager to come in.

INEOS must decide what they want. This squad seems locked around a boring counter attacking football, something SAF implemented and no manager was able to get away from. INEOS can either embrace that style which would see us flirt between 2nd and 10th but is cost effective or they could break everything up as quickly as possible so that previous negative traits inherited from the old guard aren't learnt by the new guys. That would be costly. What INEOS are currently doing is the equivalent of someone walking into one of these ultra expensive private jet seller offices with just 10 euros in his pockets and expecting to buy the best private jet around. It ain't happening and will make him look silly in the process

This. We basically went for Amorim and know that besides having a lot of centre backs we didn't have the squad for his formation.

From the looks of things Amorim discovered that very quickly after a couple of weeks going by his interviews.

You have to be willing to actually give this time, players and backing. The key is that the players we sign not only suit the formation, but are also athletic, technical and have a good IQ. This means that even if Amorim doesn't work out, we can get another manager who is able to get the best out of our squad. Last season was the worst season we had in PL history. This season our manager was sacked with us in 13th.

We need to spend a lot on an attack.

 

[Gordon'sHill]

Amorim's system is very similar to Xabi Alonso's and Inzaghi's. Its also similar to Tuchel's as well. But yes its a bit niche and the squad we've got is ill suited to his game

Not sure that Amorim is that similar. Tuchel is flexible, he played back 3 at Chelsea but at Dortmund and PSG he played back 4s. Amorim seems uniquely inflexible in his system. Alonso is closer in that he also plays 3 at a back, but in a 3-4-2-1. He has also played a more 4-3-3 formation. The best managers adapt. This is my concern with Amorim, but I hope he proves me wrong. He's got a huge challenge.

 

[astracrazy]

At least then we'd have a month of training sessions rather than 1 session every week or whatever we have now

It won't happen. He is so deep into sticking to his system he will have to die by it.

 

[Big Andy]

He said your going to suffer and suffer you will, I realy thought they'd try to get a striker of some sort through the door in January, instead got rid of 3 players and to not try and get a replacement for Rashford is criminal really.
Amorin has his work cut out and I can't see anything bar losses or Draws and the odd win..
Go out in FA cup maybe next round , get about 40pts in league and Europa league I thought we could win that who knows still could .

The trouble is, do you really think that a 4 week training regime in pre-season is suddenly enough to turn this team into a 3-4-3 machine? I don't as the majority of our players are thick.

 

[pocco]

I think the biggest issue is that we're just not getting the basics right. Forget the football or system, but set pieces are the bread and butter of all teams through the entire football pyramid.

It's shocking how poor we are at defending them, and how poor we are attacking through them.

He's failed to get on top of that issue since he's arrived, and arguably the issues gotten worse since he's been here. You can't expect to win games, knowing we're going to start every game 1 goal down. This needs to be fixed before anything else.

By the same measure, we need to be more threatening when we have our own. That doesn't mean that I expect us to get a goal a game from them, but the amount of wasted set pieces we have drives me nuts. It's clear that we just don't spend anywhere near enough time on them in training.

The other thing I've been adamant about since he joined here, is that he needs to solidify the middle of pitch - at least while everyone's still learning the system. Chelsea's Conte are the blueprint to make this system work, and they had Kante and Matic in the middle. You need 2 players that can hold the pitch, so that your wide CBs can contest the spaces out wide so that your wingbacks can afford to be "lazy" defensively. Even Amad, at RWB gets pinned too far back back.

To make this system work, in possession you need this 3-2 set up, so that when you lose the ball the space you willingly give to teams is down the wide channels but it's your CBs who are defending down the channels, and your midfielders cut off space in the middle.

Forget Chelsea, Man City's treble winning side also ended up in this set up in attack.

-------Rodri--Stones
-----LCB---CCB---RCB

That team won the treble just 2 seasons ago, so it's not as if this set up can't work. Our problem is that aside from Ugarte, that second person in midfield isn't enough of a defensive presence. So he needs to find a way to either get Casemiro or Collyer in the team, or if he doesn't believe they're good enough he needs to do something clever like get one of the wingbacks to invert into midfield, and get one of the forwards to shuffle out wide.

We don't have players in the same stratosphere as Kante or Matic, don't you think it's a bit harsh to expect him to produce that from nothing? He's played Ugarte consistently, and has used Collyer, but the issues are still there. Right now he is trying every possible combination of players, probably in the hope that something works. But we can see with our own untrained eyes that nothing is really coming off. He has allowed Garnacho freedom to drift wide and operate in more familiar areas, with the LWB tucking in, but it isn't working. He did exactly that just this past weekend.

I feel for the guy, he has been really set up for failure with this lot. He's left a job where he was going strong in the CL, wasn't losing any games, just for this. People want him to come under pressure seemingly, but if INEOS don't give him this first season as a free hit then they have made a huge mistake in not seeing the issues with what were on the horizon. And, apparently, they didn't move for him in the summer because they did foresee these issues, so you can only conclude that none of this comes as a surprise to them right now and they will remain patient.

 

[MadDogg]

I'm maybe beating a dead horse and it's very good that many wants to show patience but my point isn't to not be patient, it's to be able to identify whether a manager is worth the patience. The situation isn't ideal that's a fact but is the manage ideal long term? Is the manager showing traits that make him an ideal long term option? To me there are two key characteristics when it comes to long term success, the ability to improve less than ideal situations and the ability to adapt to what you have, managers that can't do either or both of these things fail at a good level.

Now people may disagree with the half season timeline and think that it should be 12 months, I'm fine with that but it's extremely risky to back a manager financially this summer if there is no clear sign of improvements between January and June.

I do think the lack of time to actually train does have to be taken into account. He's walked in and changed the system significantly during probably the busiest period of the season, playing 19 games in 10 weeks. From memory it was only a couple of weeks ago that Amorim said we'd only had four or five proper training sessions since he'd arrived. It's all just recovery from the previous match and then specifics for the next one.

Combine that with the lack of wingbacks and effectively no striker (probably the three most important positions in making the formation work), and I do think that 'give him more time' has a fairly strong claim. I'd be a lot more worried if he'd had a full preseason and plenty of time to train.

 

[Rusholme Ruffian]

You also need to know that Fergie improved drastically the performances of the team during his first 18 months and then ovehauled the club from top to bottom. SAF got time and support because he initially showed that he was worth it. The times weren't actually different, unsuccesful managers were sacked left, right and center back then.

and yet you have given Amorim 3 months before deciding that's he's not worth sticking with?

 

[sugar_kane]

No. People can easily see he is good. Turned lots of players into profit. Won with very attacking style. Is very charismatic. The gaslighting is because everyone was deluded with eth, and now are questioning every thing, all the time.

Its harder to accept the club hired an awful manager 3 years ago. And made a complete revamp of the team, buying worse than we had. Spending more than 700 million. But its the truth, nonetheless.

On paper there is very little Amorim has achieved which Ten Hag hasn't.

Look, I get it - the idea of Amorim not working out is horrendous, but we don't need to be completely blinkered and use how terrible we are now as a constant excuse to shit all over the last guy.

 

[Sarni]

Amorim's system is very similar to Xabi Alonso's and Inzaghi's. Its also similar to Tuchel's as well. But yes its a bit niche and the squad we've got is ill suited to his game

I've seen Alonso play both 3 and 4 at the back, switch from 343 to 352 to 451... so it seems that the way he plays is far more flexible.

 

[witchtrials]

and yet you have given Amorim 3 months before deciding that's he's not worth sticking with?

I don't think many people think he should be sacked now. But by the summer he needs to show some actual progress in terms of improving the standard of play.

Regarding 18 months, unfortunately the finances of Premier League football in 2025, with regard to sponsorship clauses, TV money and PSR calculations means there is a much tighter feedback loop between performances and resources, so clubs can't afford to wait and see if a faltering manager will eventually come good, as they might have been able to do in the 80s and 90s.

 

[JPRouve]

True that's why I separated it from the other two. Though I admit I should have written that post better

The others shouldn't be separated. Inzaghi started with a 4231, then with Lazio he settled with a back three but it's very important to keep in mind that he uses a wide variety of organizations and systems, he is far from rigid and he adapts to the the players at his disposal, nowadays the only constant is 3 CBs. Basically suggesting that Amorim and Inzaghi have similar systems would be like suggesting that Conte, Cruijff and Bielsa also have the same systems, they don't. The same way two 442 managers can have vastly different systems.

 

[JPRouve]

and yet you have given Amorim 3 months before deciding that's he's not worth sticking with?

I haven't decided a thing.

 

[Rusholme Ruffian]

I haven't decided a thing.

Ha, your (many) posts today suggest otherwise.

 

[Vault Dweller]

We still look poor from set pieces. I cannot understand that with multiple managers we look so hopeless offensively and defensively at them.