Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach

JPRouve said:
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.
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It all depends on Ineos really. Assuming but that we give him a big budget to spend, that the money is spent wisely (no more 80m for Antony sort of nonsense) and we bring 5-7 players (which we need) then I'll truly judge him by the end of next season.

There would be red flags though. For example I would be concerned if he tries to bring half of Sporting squads to Manchester.
 
devilish said:
It all depends on Ineos really. Assuming but that we give him a big budget to spend, that the money is spent wisely (no more 80m for Antony sort of nonsense) and we bring 5-7 players (which we need) then I'll truly judge him by the end of next season.

There would be red flags though. For example I would be concerned if he tries to bring half of Sporting squads to Manchester.
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So you agree with the way the Glazers have managed the club for more than a decade.
 
I have accepted that we're gonna be shite for a while. My life has been really peaceful since I've come to terms with that. There is not a single manager out there who can just come in, snap his fingers, and we're going to be one of the best teams in Europe. This is going to take a while to sort out.
 
JPRouve said:
So you agree with the way the Glazers have managed the club for more than a decade.
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Where have I said that? Two of the policies I mentioned in that very post goes against what the Glazers is all about (ie signing 5-7 signings in a summer transfer window and not overpaying). They did the third thing with ETH (bringing half of the Eredivisie to United when ETH was in charge)
 
devilish said:
Where have I said that? Two of the policies I mentioned in that very post goes against what the Glazers is all about (ie signing 5-7 signings in a summer transfer window and not overpaying). They did the third thing with ETH (bringing half of the Eredivisie to United when ETH was in charge)
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What you described is how the Glazers have led the club and how we have ended in our current situation. Blindly spend big on a manager before actually evaluating him at United.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
Bayindir, Mazroaui, De Ligt, Yoro, Ugarte, Hojlund, Zirkzee, Mainoo, and Amad are all probably upgrades on some of the players we had in their positions when we finished 3rd 18 months ago.
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Shaw, Casemiro who was still an outstanding player (arguably world class), a Rashford on a purple patch (we don't score goals), Bayandir isn't better than De Gea (neither is Onana), Varane and Martinez were exceptional and available for much of the first season. On top of that, we've been playing without a left back.

Our other, most effective player in Bruno was a better player than he is now. He's slowly declining.

Yoro is in bold for now because I think he's got a higher ceiling than any of our defenders but is not ready to start every game.

You've just chucked in a bunch of names here without thinking about it.
 
No one knows if we are on the right path to return to former glories.
No one knows if we have picked the correct manager.
No one knows even if we are succesful we can maintain that success.

What I do know is that we don't have a set of players that can perform consistently - this has been proven over the years with different managers. A manager alone cannot bring you success - they need the ingredients of the right set of players and the backing of the board.

Players come before the manager and until we have a set of hungry, athletic and well drilled players we won't be close to winning the league anytime soon.
 
Rusholme Ruffian said:
I don't want to derail the thread here, but you made a fairly cutting claim about me: "You have an incredible habit to be disingenuous"

I'm just asking you to point out to me where I have been disingenuous in our discussions today?
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I already did it twice, so move on.
 
JPRouve said:
What you described is how the Glazers have led the club and how we have ended in our current situation. Blindly spend big on a manager before actually evaluating him at United.
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100%.

Everyone was desperate for an Ashworth figure and an end to this expensive ”spending for the current manager” nonsense the Glazers have done ever since Moyes/Fellaini.
Yet the second we get a new charismatic manager and fire Ashworth, everyone’s all game for continuing on the Glazer train which now means buying specific players for one of the very few managers in World Football that plays with 5 at the back.

All the while the same new manager that so many now want us to gamble hundreds of millions on, rather than showing his worth and improving the current players, is getting a much worse tune out of them than the last guy.
 
UnsungHero said:
It's not so much that, it's just he's shining an even bigger light on what is realistically a pretty dire situation.
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How's he shining a bigger light? He talks about teams every Monday and we tend to he one of these teams
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
100%.

Everyone was desperate for an Ashworth figure and an end to this expensive ”spending for the current manager” nonsense the Glazers have done ever since Moyes/Fellaini.
Yet the second we get a new charismatic manager and fire Ashworth, everyone’s all game for continuing on the Glazer train which now means buying specific players for one of the very few managers in World Football that plays with 5 at the back.

All the while the same new manager that so many now want us to gamble hundreds of millions on, rather than showing his worth and improving the current players, is getting a much worse tune out of them than the last guy.
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Yeah on top of all that, the current league position makes this season a write off...spending /wasting millions to move the club up the table 1-2 places is hardly worth the outlay.

Let's just see what Amorim can do first before backing him with another 100-150M.
 
JPRouve said:
What you described is how the Glazers have led the club and how we have ended in our current situation. Blindly spend big on a manager before actually evaluating him at United.
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I think leaving the manager with a smaller squad when the squad is already in a bad state is probably not the best way to evaluate a manager.
Even worse the club blindly spent in the summer on a manager they didn't even want to back, probably worse than the Glazers there to be honest.

If we want to "evaluate" Amorim at the club, we have to also give him a real platform to display some of his qualities... else we are just setting him up for failure.

EDIT: I also disagree that the issue with the Glazers was the spending, the issue with the Glazers was the fact they did not put football people in charge of said spending and the spending was targetted more towards commercial success than footballing success.

Unless we are asking Amorim to do what no top manager in the PL has done before, which is take a top club with a poor squad forward without reinforcing the squad
 
JPRouve said:
This team is also far better than LVG's before injuries. Now the complete change of system and absence of preseason exacerbate the issues but that shouldn't prevent improvements between now and the end of the season.
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That’s a very bold claim to say with such certainty. Please tell me who gets in the starting 11 from this squad.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
All the while the same new manager that so many now want us to gamble hundreds of millions on, rather than showing his worth and improving the current players, is getting a much worse tune out of them than the last guy.
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There is a middle way, that I would have thought most people would be on board with, which is get the man a genuine centre forward, and possibly another attacking fullback, allow him to have a preseason - with a squad that now know his expectations - and see how things are looking at that point. Apart from anything else I don't even think we will be able to spend 'hundreds of millions' due to the PSR situation so that's not even going to be a possibility?
 
JPRouve said:
What you described is how the Glazers have led the club and how we have ended in our current situation. Blindly spend big on a manager before actually evaluating him at United.
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Yeah, the "give him a budget to spend" bit stood out to me.

The manager should not be the person driving recruitment at the club. Recipe for disaster.
 
Dan_F said:
That’s a very bold claim to say with such certainty. Please tell me who gets in the starting 11 from this squad.
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Maybe I'm wrong, I have this starting eleven in mind


--------------------------De Gea
Valencia---De Ligt----Smalling---Blind
----------------Carrick----Ugarte
Amad----------Bruno------Garnacho
--------------------Martial
 
JPRouve said:
Maybe I'm wrong, I have this starting eleven in mind


--------------------------De Gea
Valencia---De Ligt----Smalling---Blind
----------------Carrick----Ugarte
Amad----------Bruno------Garnacho
--------------------Martial
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Blind over Shaw?
 
Big Ben Foster said:
Yeah, the "give him a budget to spend" bit stood out to me.

The manager should not be the person driving recruitment at the club. Recipe for disaster.
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I think that there are ways around it where you sign cheap specialist that make things easier for Amorim and spend serious money on positions that transcend systems like CMs, goalscorers or goalkeepers. What I wouldn't do is spend an other +30m on a wingback that is only potentially good at wingback.
 
I was too little when SAF revived us and turned us into a force but over the last decade I have seen two mini rivals of fallen big clubs: one at Liverpool and one at Arsenal. When you look at their first seasons, Klopp and Arteta took different approaches. Klopp tried to implement his style of play from the get go and didn't wait to get "his players" in before he could do anything. Liverpool got mixed results in the league that season but did well to reach the Europa final. The one thing that was pretty obvious in Klopp's first season was the style of play he was going to play at Liverpool. He molded the team in his vision and in the following years added the necessary pieces to the puzzle to reach the end goal.

Arteta took a different approach, may be because it was his first job and he didn't have the pedigree of Klopp, and started by taking the easiest route, which was counter-attacking football suited to the players at his disposal. He worked with Edu, his sporting director, to clear the team in the next couple of years by removing high wage earners and getting younger, hungrier players into the team from the academy or the market. As his team evolved, Arsenal's style of play evolved.

I really like listening to Ruben and he comes across really well in his interviews/pressers. He seems like a man of conviction who will adhere to his principles and has vivid ideas on how he wants to play football. However, so far I haven't any evidence of those ideas in our playing style. The talk of formations etc is secondary to me. I believe a style of football depends on what you do with our without the football regardless of how you line up on paper or on the field of play. I feel even with the personnel at his disposal we should have seen some evidence of what he is trying to do on the football pitch in the 15+ games he has been in charge of us. He has been here around 3 months now and lack of training excuse doesn't cut it anymore. We looked as pathetic and clueless against Palace as we did in the 5 or 10 games before it. The defensive solidity that should come with playing 5 defensive players isn't evident; however, the lack of attacking impetus due to those five defensive players is clearly evident. We look as open in the midfield as we did under ETH and teams still waltz by our midfield as they did back then. Our attacking play is dependent on Amad coming up with a worldie performances where he wins the ball and scores from it. The rest of the attacking unit looks as inept as ever.

I still believe in him and wants him given time. Although, I don't subscribe to the theory that he needs 500m and 10 players before we see some improvement. There simply has to evidence before the end of the season that this man can be trusted with a massive rebuild. Him and we have to do better than we have been. We can't keep scoring blanks at home against every two bit oppoition that comes there.
 
fergiewherearethou said:
Only 4-5 to do what? Finish top 4? top 8? win a cup? win the league? win the CL?
I mean even if we hand picked the best 5 players on the planet, I don't think we would be able to win a major trophy.
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5 new players to finish top 4. We have very low successrate on our transfers so we might need to buy many more than 5.
 
The Mitcher said:
I suppose, but in terms of talent I'd have him over Blind who I never really rated THAT high.
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It wasn't the point. The point was about the quality of the team that finished 5th. That team had an injury crisis and featured a lot of Varela, McNair, Fosuh Mensah, Borthwick Jackson, Pereira, Lingard, some dreadful performers like Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger or Depay(2015 Zirkzee).

It was a genuinely awful squad that was actually available.
 
JPRouve said:
It wasn't the point. The point was about the quality of the team that finished 5th. That team had an injury crisis and featured a lot of Varela, McNair, Fosuh Mensah, Borthwick Jackson, Pereira, Lingard, some dreadful performers like Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger or Depay(2015 Zirkzee).

It was a genuinely awful squad that was actually available.
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I agree, and that's because LVG was allowed to gut the squad completely.
 
JPRouve said:
Maybe I'm wrong, I have this starting eleven in mind


--------------------------De Gea
Valencia---De Ligt----Smalling---Blind
----------------Carrick----Ugarte
Amad----------Bruno------Garnacho
--------------------Martial
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Depends which year of Van Gaal we go with but Ugarte has yet to show he’s better than Herrera. Di Maria was quite clearly miles ahead of Garnacho as a player. I’d argue Rashford was better than Garnacho in his first season too. Although I’d probably put Martial left and literally any of our strikers from 2014-15 up front.

Ironically that squad was probably far better for Amorims system. Ashley Young would have been an ideal wing back :lol:
 
The Mitcher said:
I agree, and that's because LVG was allowed to gut the squad completely.
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You can blame LVG, I have no issue with that. The point is that a good head coach will elevate some dreadful squads though it's fair to say that he had a preseason. But the overarching point is that we make too many excuses for our head coaches the standard should be what LVG did, even if he was an awful squad builder, he was a very good coach.
 
JPRouve said:
You can blame LVG, I have no issue with that. The point is that a good head coach will elevate some dreadful squads though it's fair to say that he had a preseason. But the overarching point is that we make too many excuses for our head coaches the standard should be what LVG did, even if he was an awful squad builder, he was a very good coach.
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I would argue he didn't elevate that squad and that he should have done better. The style of play that season resulted in too many draws and not enough wins.
 
If he can't improve us by end of the season he has to go. Do not repeat the mistake of keeping ETH last summer and backed him with hundred of millions only to sack him a few months later. Do not let the history repeats itself.
 
Dan_F said:
Depends which year of Van Gaal we go with but Ugarte has yet to show he’s better than Herrera. Di Maria was quite clearly miles ahead of Garnacho as a player. I’d argue Rashford was better than Garnacho in his first season too. Although I’d probably put Martial left and literally any of our strikers from 2014-15 up front.

Ironically that squad was probably far better for Amorims system. Ashley Young would have been an ideal wing back :lol:
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I was talking about 2015-2016, the season with the injury crisis.
 
UnsungHero said:
He already did his podcast session after the Arsenal game. I don't think I've ever seen him do one after MNF as well.
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He does it on Monday nights too, half that vid is actually him talking about the West ham game and then he's asked about Manchester United.
 
The Mitcher said:
I would argue he didn't elevate that squad and that he should have done better. The style of play that season resulted in too many draws and not enough wins.
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Better than 5th and same amount of points than the 4th best team with that lot?
 
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