Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach

[Insanity]

A sensible post at last.

It took him only 26 years

 

[Posh Red]

Because the players are the clubs players and his job is to get them to perform. He is doing worse than EtH who was sacked for a higher level of performances and we see no real improvement.

So Amorim is doing a bad job which results in pressure.

You have to get rid of the idea that players are signed for a manager and that the manager should be judged based on his signings. That model is dead.

You have to judge Wilcox/Vivell on the players they sign.
You have to judge Amorim on how they play.

The exact model Ten Hag enjoyed; you mean?

 

[HackeyC]

Formations aren't everything, but 4-3-2-1 would be much easier for this group of players to adopt. 5 at the back is proving a nightmare, quite why I am not sure. Amorim is treading a dangerous line, I like him, but this is a results based business. If he doesn't win Europa league I think he will go.

 

[stefan92]

If he wants to play a certain style and they can not, it is not his problem, it's the club's problem who brought him midseason.

That's true. But based on this one could conclude that it was a mistake to hire him in these circumstances and that mistake might have to be corrected.

That wouldn't mean that he is a bad manager either, but he still could be sacked. And Berrada would have to answer some hard questions.

United still can win stuff this season and stickig to a system that doesn't work means throwing that away. Of course there is pressure piling on.

 

[red_de_pologne]

Because the players are the clubs players and his job is to get them to perform. He is doing worse than EtH who was sacked for a higher level of performances and we see no real improvement.

So Amorim is doing a bad job which results in pressure.

You have to get rid of the idea that players are signed for a manager and that the manager should be judged based on his signings. That model is dead.

You have to judge Wilcox/Vivell on the players they sign.
You have to judge Amorim on how they play.

Were you privy to the requirements made by the INEOS when hiring him? Could very well be long term building towards playing his style. It's pretty obvious he ws not a manager hired to get quick results

 

[JPRouve]

I have no issue with the manager/coach being given time to get things right, I have issue with rebuilding a squad to suit the system I don't believe in.

It's really a sad state of affairs because I do think he's the right age and profile we should be looking at but I'm just not convinced he was the correct decision for the club overal.

Yeah, he has the right profile and if he adapts, which simply means that he needs to understand that his ideas and ways of doing things aren't infaillible and will require tuning a multitude of times during his caree, he can be successful. The question is whether he will understand it at United or if United will be a lesson that he understands later. In other words is United to Amorim what Juventus was to Ancelotti, a learning stage to greater things?

 

[stefan92]

Were you privy to the requirements made by the INEOS when hiring him? Could very well be long term building towards playing his style. It's pretty obvious he ws not a manager hired to get quick results

Of course I wasn't. But I still can judge what I see and I don't really see a lot of progress.

Which is worrying because he will have to make it work with most of these players as funds are obviously limited.

And it's worrying (but a bit less for me) that the other club teams don't play in a similar way. I don't see a cohesive tactical approach for the whole club which makes it harder to get youth players ready for the step up.

 

[Redstain]

I have no issue with the manager/coach being given time to get things right, I have issue with rebuilding a squad to suit the system I don't believe in.

It's really a sad state of affairs because I do think he's the right age and profile we should be looking at but I'm just not convinced he was the correct decision for the club.

Agree, he's the right choice in terms of profile but at the end of the day the one area it's almost impossible to measure without exposure to the job is competence.

I don't think Amorim has enough in his coaching repertoire to raise the level of United to a competitive standard. He's had multiple games in charge and there's very little fruit when assessing what the teams doing well. Even isolating results just assessing performances there's not enough progression.

By Amorim's own admission he needs to earn time and as much as I dislike INEOS and the hierarchy Ruben has done next to nothing to inspire confidence in them giving him a 300-400 million over the next few windows.

He has to drastically improve, him saying the job is hard, have no sympathy unfortunately because his lack of adaptation is making things more difficult. Flexibility doesn't mean changing the entire system but rather the iteration of how the system is accommodated. Look at Alonso's deployment of the same / similar team shape and there's clear differences, so all the talk about formations is nonchalant coaching and playing ideology is where the separation is.

If I'm INEOS I would be planning beyond him. Not meaning identifying a new manager but buying players who have some feasibility to be flexible so that United are not stuck with a one dimensional team in the very likely event that the manager continues to fail even with prolonged investment in the squad.

 

[Devil81]

Yeah, he has the right profile and if he adapts, which simply means that he needs to understand that his ideas and ways of doing things aren't infaillible and will require tuning a multitude of times during his caree, he can be successful. The question is whether he will understand it at United or if United will be a lesson that he understands later. In other words is United to Amorim what Juventus was to Ancelotti, a learning stage to greater things?

The thing is I respect his stance on persisting with the formation but I also look at it like he's almost signing his own death warrant. If he just loosened up on his own principles from now until the end of the season and went with a system that suited the players at his disposal more I wouldn't think any less of him, I actually think people would appreciate he can see what needs to be done in order to win football matches. At the moment he's doing nobody any good including his bosses who must be feeling the impact of the continued losses.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

The exact model Ten Hag enjoyed; you mean?

Yes, it was an enormous mistake to give him that much power over transfers

 

[Gavinb33]

Why pressure on the manager? they are not his players, they should be the ones facing the pressure.

Because it's cheaper to sack him than sack 25 players

 

[TrailMonkey]

I’ve just been doing some maths to see how far we’ve fallen since a little run of league form we had under ETH in Feb 2024. Back then, we were starting to give ourselves a chance of finishing top 6 ahead of the likes of Chelsea who as we all know had fallen apart again. However, things were to change… we lost two on the bounce and questions were being asked again… a win over Everton followed by a draw with Brentford and a loss to Chelsea saw us in trouble. The latter found some crazy form from nowhere, winning most of their remaining games and losing only to Arsenal, whilst we capitulated to finish 8th. I was so frustrated with how the team performed over that period. We even did our best to lose at Coventry in FA Cup semi, but somehow pulled through.

Fast forward to where we are now in the league - and my reasoning for doing some maths based on our form since that last win against Luton in Feb 2024:

Games: 38
W: 12
D: 9
L: 17

Win ratio: 32%
Loss ratio: 45%

Points: 45

That’s 45 points in a full season’s worth of games, winning a third and losing nearly half.

Currently we’re sat on 29 points from 25 games. With 13 games to go, we’re on track to gain another 11 points and finishing on 40.

Let that sink in for a while…

 

[Reiver]

The only time, so far, when I've properly been annoyed with him was the Spurs match just gone. I wanted him to bring on some of the young lads with 15-20 minutes to go. We couldn't hit a barn door let alone score a goal and it wouldn't really have mattered if we'd conceded again. A word from him before going on could have helped take the pressure off and there you go: a few of the lads have made their senior team debut. Which, for some of them, is probably not far off anyway given current circumstances.

 

[Regalia]

Of course it won’t. Some are just hoping out loud.

They've been hoping out loud for the good part of 500 pages. Incessantly.

 

[Smores]

Because the players are the clubs players and his job is to get them to perform. He is doing worse than EtH who was sacked for a higher level of performances and we see no real improvement.

So Amorim is doing a bad job which results in pressure.

You have to get rid of the idea that players are signed for a manager and that the manager should be judged based on his signings. That model is dead.

You have to judge Wilcox/Vivell on the players they sign.
You have to judge Amorim on how they play.

That requires a rather large assumption that INEOS believe the players are good enough. There's very little to back that assertion up given who they've offloaded.

It's far more likely that INEOS knows the squad is shit and they've tasked Amorim to build for the future with a squad they know is limited.

We don't know the requirements he's been set or whether they've accepted short term pain for long term gain. It's guesswork.

Next season if they bring in a couple of players I'm sure they'll be expecting significant progress though.

 

[Antekera]

To a certain extent I see quite a few similarities with my current Sevilla FC where many fans always fall back on blaming the coach or looking for another game plan. Up to this point it's fine and you can get more points if you know the weaknesses of your players... but we've had 7 coaches in two years and we're still sunk in the middle of the table and we think we have a better team and that we can be higher up when the reality is that if you're in the middle of the table for three years it's because you really have the team for that! United don't have as good a team as you think, they have some good players but for me you don't have a goalkeeper that can give the team points, a defense where you only have two decent players like Delight and Martinez and a slow and old midfield. If we add two young forwards who don't score much, then you have a team that can hardly compete in the competition.

 

[SteveCoppellFan]

Any United fan out there that wants this manager gone is an absolute disgrace.

A low level pathetic way to support a football club.

He's the right guy with a bunch of wrong players.

A total reset in the summer and lets judge him on next season.

 

[Drainy]

Formations aren't everything, but 4-3-2-1 would be much easier for this group of players to adopt. 5 at the back is proving a nightmare, quite why I am not sure. Amorim is treading a dangerous line, I like him, but this is a results based business. If he doesn't win Europa league I think he will go.

The answer is that the players aren't being brave enough

 

[JPRouve]

The thing is I respect his stance on persisting with the formation but I also look at it like he's almost signing his own death warrant. If he just loosened up on his own principles from now until the end of the season and went with a system that suited the players at his disposal more I wouldn't think any less of him, I actually think people would appreciate he can see what needs to be done in order to win football matches. At the moment he's doing nobody any good including his bosses who must be feeling the impact of the continued losses.

I'm not happy with what I see and I'm looking at his work with critical eyes but I don't understand your stance because it doesn't actually make sense to me. The issue isn't the formation but the coaching of the formation and some intrincacies that make or break the system, that issue was true for ETH in his 4231. There is no actual sense in demanding that Amorim changes for a formation that "fits" the players and I'm interpreting it as 4231/433, if I'm wrong please correct me, the reason it doesn't make sense is that it assumes that Amorim has the understanding of this other formation/system to a level that would be better than ETH which isn't a given since it's not a system that he has used much in the past 5 years.

And that's why I'm looking at him particularly critically. I don't know Xabi Alonso so I won't use him as an example but I know Gasperini and LVG both of these managers are seasoned training ground coaches, they have many flaws but if you give them a team at any point during a season after 4 months that team evolves and the understanding of the system they chose visibly improves. I could be totally wrong but after 4 months I don't think that switching the system will improve anything, I think that Amorim's current flaw has been exposed, assuming that he is a very good coach, he is a "slow" learner/teacher.

And yes, that's a subjective take.

 

[WPMUFC]

Oh my god....they are actually trying it again. They are trying to sack 2 managers in a season. This club is so disgusting, I genuinely hate this squad.

I suppose Garnacho's miss is Amorims fault. I guess not being able to pass 2 metres to your team mate is amorims fault.

They are the most despicable losers in english football.

 

[Insanity]

Formations aren't everything, but 4-3-2-1 would be much easier for this group of players to adopt. 5 at the back is proving a nightmare, quite why I am not sure. Amorim is treading a dangerous line, I like him, but this is a results based business. If he doesn't win Europa league I think he will go.

I don't think formation is that big of a problem and find the entire discussion on it preposterous. We played 4231 under ETH and struggled last season and in the period he was managing us this season. We can decide to sit back with the 5321, play our midfield closer to our defense, try to attack on the counter and we'd immediately start to get better results than we are getting now. Mind you, we'd still struggle but we definitely won't lose as many games we are now.

Imo, our major issue is the slowness of our central defense. Ideally, you would want the defense to move up and get closer to midfield as we attack. That would close the gap between the defense and midfield not allowing the opposition to cut through it as easily as they are able to now. Unfortunately, both Maguire (and de Ligt) do not have the recovery pace if the opposition is still able to find space through and get behind them. That is the reason why our defense is reluctant to move up and we are not able to find the balance.

The second issue is that we don't have a striker with good hold up and link up ability who can finish. There is talk about lack of service, but I think we are suffering because of a lack of a proper striker. A good striker will hold-up the ball and bring other attackers into play. In our case, the ball usually bounces of Rasmus or he falls on the ground trying to wrestle with opposition defenders. This limits our attacking opportunities and constantly puts our midfield and defense under pressure as it hnds the opposition easy possession.

Third issue is that our attack is really substandard. We hardly score any early goals. Early goals throw the opposition's entire plan into disarray and allows you to control the game better. If we had the ability to score early goals it would force the oppostion to come at us and would leave more spaces for us to exploit. Right now they come to OT and due to our inability to score goals are under little pressue and are able to play their game. As the game goes on we start to get more nervous and make mistakes.

Ruben has been trying to find a balance and wants to us to play front foot football despite those major limitations. I think ultimately if the results remain bad he won't have any choice but to have us play on the counter for the rest of the season.

 

[Desert Eagle]

I’ve just been doing some maths to see how far we’ve fallen since a little run of league form we had under ETH in Feb 2024. Back then, we were starting to give ourselves a chance of finishing top 6 ahead of the likes of Chelsea who as we all know had fallen apart again. However, things were to change… we lost two on the bounce and questions were being asked again… a win over Everton followed by a draw with Brentford and a loss to Chelsea saw us in trouble. The latter found some crazy form from nowhere, winning most of their remaining games and losing only to Arsenal, whilst we capitulated to finish 8th. I was so frustrated with how the team performed over that period. We even did our best to lose at Coventry in FA Cup semi, but somehow pulled through.

Fast forward to where we are now in the league - and my reasoning for doing some maths based on our form since that last win against Luton in Feb 2024:

Games: 38
W: 12
D: 9
L: 17

Win ratio: 32%
Loss ratio: 45%

Points: 45

That’s 45 points in a full season’s worth of games, winning a third and losing nearly half.

Currently we’re sat on 29 points from 25 games. With 13 games to go, we’re on track to gain another 11 points and finishing on 40.

Let that sink in for a while…

The fact that's it's under two managers shows it's more on the players than the manager. Still the motherflippin Glazers have a lot to answer for.

 

[Bobby_2024]

We can talk about players/formations/managers/owners but in the end we scored 58 (2023)/57(2024) goals in last 2 seasons.
So we know for sure there is lot to be done. I think better we start buying right players then looking at changing manager one more time.

We are playing with out a proper consistent striker in his prime for last 4/5 years proves we need to look at our market strategy.

 

[crossy1686]

We don't have the 15h worst squad in the league, that's for sure.
If ETH finished 8th with this lot, or a worse one, last season I can't consider anything less as an achievement.

I hate to break it to you but Ten Hag was performing just as bad, even worse so this season than last. In fact it was so bad, he lost his job, which is why Amorim is here in the first place. All our stats were relegation stats, nothing has changed except the manager. I know you’re desperate to blame the manager but you might want to take aim at Ten Hag and whomever gave him permission to spend £1b on absolute shite.

 

[Posh Red]

Yes, it was an enormous mistake to give him that much power over transfers

Agreed, and the current manager is now dealing with the aftermath.

 

[Hernandez - BFA]

Any United fan out there that wants this manager gone is an absolute disgrace.

A low level pathetic way to support a football club.

He's the right guy with a bunch of wrong players.

A total reset in the summer and lets judge him on next season.

100% agreed.

 

[crossy1686]

Formations aren't everything, but 4-3-2-1 would be much easier for this group of players to adopt. 5 at the back is proving a nightmare, quite why I am not sure. Amorim is treading a dangerous line, I like him, but this is a results based business. If he doesn't win Europa league I think he will go.

The reserves play 5 at the back and are flying. It’s a nothing argument. The wingbacks move into midfield when we have the ball, the problem is that the midfield is shit so we can’t get out and they get pinned back, it’s nothing to do with the formation, it would be the same if we had wingers.

 

[pcaming]

Think I’d be ready to drop United if Bruno, Rashford, Maguire and co outlive another United manager. If we lose at the same pace in the first 3 months of next season then by all means he has to go.

Onana, Lindelof, Maguire, Malacia, Shaw, Evans, Mount, Casemiro, Eriksen, Rashford and Antony

That’s a full 11 senior players who all know they don’t have futures at the club beyond 6-18 months. Be it through injuries, ability or contracts that won’t be renewed. The squad is at the point it’s totally unmanageable.

Is that not the exact mistake we made with Ten Hag this season…

It’s crazy how we have to gamble 100s of millions in the hope that new signings can work in his system and bring success. Most other clubs would want their manager to show that his philosophy works and reward him with signings.

Guess that’s why we continue to fail.

 

[SparcMac]

We don't have the 15h worst squad in the league, that's for sure.
If ETH finished 8th with this lot, or a worse one, last season I can't consider anything less as an achievement.

On stats we were 14th last season, we overperformed the xG and teams couldn't finish off their 20+ shots against us.

 

[Judas]

We don't have the 15h worst squad in the league, that's for sure.
If ETH finished 8th with this lot, or a worse one, last season I can't consider anything less as an achievement.

We had no right to finish that high last season. We were awful. It's not often the table lies, but it really did.

 

[DRJosh]

For those who are stating that taking up the United job was a bigger bite than Amorim could chew, - we aren’t ’a top’ club any longer or a club that requires a certain type of high profile manager.

In fact we’re a bottom half team in the trenches. I’d say Amorim has had to take a major step down in terms of quality to manage the clowns who now play for United.

We have a storied history as a club and a legacy spanning decades with substantial market reach. But we’re not a big club when it comes to performances on the pitch. Quite the opposite.

Amorim isn’t out of his depth here but rather he has been handed a very different deck of cards to what he had at Sporting. A more inferior one.

 

[TrailMonkey]

None of us know exactly what’s going on behind club doors. Whilst I hope that Amorim is backed in the summer, my fear is that if he does an Ange by persisting with his formation and tactics, and we end up in 14th or 15th then he’s putting his future in the hands of those above. How certain is he that they’re going to back him? What if we can’t shift deadwood and bring in who he wants/needs… and we start next season with the same shit?

I’m firmly behind Amorim, but he and the club are in a very precarious position. Sadly it’s the players who have nothing to lose, except a bit of pride. I just can’t get my around some of their shortcomings and inabilities to not do the basics. How much of that is on them individually, and how much of that is down to day to day coaching, eg finishing, passing and moving, marking at corners etc?

 

[Josh 76]

I don't mind him using the league games as a way of implementing the system. My worry is that this way of playing will no way win us the EL. So I hope to god he tweaks it in Europe so we have a chance of winning it. Being in the CL next season is a must, otherwise this is going to be a very very long road to recovery, both on and off the field.

 

[stefan92]

That requires a rather large assumption that INEOS believe the players are good enough. There's very little to back that assertion up given who they've offloaded.

It's far more likely that INEOS knows the squad is shit and they've tasked Amorim to build for the future with a squad they know is limited.

We don't know the requirements he's been set or whether they've accepted short term pain for long term gain. It's guesswork.

Next season if they bring in a couple of players I'm sure they'll be expecting significant progress though.

I make no assumptions about INEOS. I think EtH made huge tactical mistakes and I see that he still got better results with this squad.

Do I think this is a title challenging squad if it gets a better manager? Definitely not. Do I think this is a relegation candidate squad? I don't think that either.

This is a mediocre squad that should linger somewhere midtable. It shouldn't be this bad.

But I don't think Amorim should be sacked now. He has to improve, but I don't expect another manager to massively turn this season around, even as shit as it is.

In the summer there will have to be a big review however to ensure that this season won't be repeated.

 

[Shark]

I hate to break it to you but Ten Hag was performing just as bad, even worse so this season than last. In fact it was so bad, he lost his job, which is why Amorim is here in the first place. All our stats were relegation stats, nothing has changed except the manager. I know you’re desperate to blame the manager but you might want to take aim at Ten Hag and whomever gave him permission to spend £1b on absolute shite.

Which is incredibly worrying. The reason ETH was sacked mid season is because we needed somebody to come in and improve results and performances. To motivate the squad to a respectful finish at least leading into the summer. You can claim it's 100% the players fault we're 15th on the table but many of them are internationals and are not this poor. Blaming Ruben for everything is wrong, but blaming the entire squad is equally so. The manager himself would also be delusional to share this view.

 

[NLunited]

Not a chance.

I‘d like to see you try to argue this point.

 

[SilentWitness]

I like him. I think he says the right things and he comes across as a good person and manager in the press conferences and interviews. His system worked at Sporting and he has a plan. These are good things. You'd say it definitely hasn't yet and the argument has been that it's due to the players not suiting it. While that's fair, it does leave the people deciding the next manager in a difficult place as if things keep going on this road until the end of the season it's a big risk to completely revamp the squad for this manager.

I think he has it in him but I do wonder if the people on the board will look at last summer with Ten Hag and how they stuck with him only to sack him a few months later and start getting twitchy bums in terms of sticking with Amorim.

 

[Gavinb33]

Any United fan out there that wants this manager gone is an absolute disgrace.

A low level pathetic way to support a football club.

He's the right guy with a bunch of wrong players.

A total reset in the summer and lets judge him on next season.

I mean you and others can keep saying the summer the summer 85% of this squad will still be there in the summer regardless of transfers

 

[#07]

Is that not the exact mistake we made with Ten Hag this season…

It’s crazy how we have to gamble 100s of millions in the hope that new signings can work in his system and bring success. Most other clubs would want their manager to show that his philosophy works and reward him with signings.

Guess that’s why we continue to fail.

Most top clubs know how they want to play and recruit a manager to execute that vision, not to provide a vision where one is lacking at the highest levels of the club.

You wouldn't see Barcelona hire a coach who didn't want to play Lamine Yamal as a winger. The clubs that have an identity aren't willing to just give a new coach carte blanche to do whatever the f-k they want and only judge them once they've spend gazillions.

The best clubs have a clear idea of what they want to see on the pitch and they recruit a manager and players to get there.

That is what Ratcliffe promised us:



Hard to see how what's happened since matches up to that.

 

[JBG]

We need a heap of signings regardless of who is manager..... obviously they should fit profiles that are not restricted to a particular formation.

Exactly this... no matter who's the manager, these bunch players are not good enough to challenge for anything other than a odd Cup here or there. Which is not what we should be aiming for.