I don't care about beating the worst City team in years when the following game we get battered by Bournemouth and look like 11 amateurs playing for the first time together, or we go to Anfield and get a result and then struggle for 80 mintues to beat one of the worst premier league sides of all time in Southampton at home, then follow that up with a battering at home by Brighton. It's so small club mentality to hang our hat on beating a good team once in awhile but be shit for the rest of the games. Amorim will just be another casualty in the graveyard of post SAF managers if he can't figure out how to beat the middle and bottom teams of the league.
Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach
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I don't care about beating the worst City team in years when the following game we get battered by Bournemouth and look like 11 amateurs playing for the first time together, or we go to Anfield and get a result and then struggle for 80 mintues to beat one of the worst premier league sides of all time in Southampton at home, then follow that up with a battering at home by Brighton. It's so small club mentality to hang our hat on beating a good team once in awhile but be shit for the rest of the games. Amorim will just be another casualty in the graveyard of post SAF managers if he can't figure out how to beat the middle and bottom teams of the league.
I'm not talking about one off games of underperforming which big teams have from time to time, I'm talking about how even our wins under him were a bit fortunate. Even the game against Everton, we were fortunate to get a draw. We created 0.45 xG against a team who spent most of the season near relegation. And the 2 goals came from individual brilliance and were not a well worked goal that was a product of his system.
And yes it's weird to play a new signing in a position(RWB) that he has only played like 5 times in his career in his first game in a new league. It's not Redcafe-ism to mention we have been in relegation form since he's come in. He took over on Nov 11th and since he's joined, in 15 PL games we have 15 points and would be 17th in the league. That's literally relegation form.
ETH ditched his system in his first year agreed but he played his system in his 2nd year with a few more signings. He had a plan to get us playing on the front foot with the high press and a full back helping in midfield a single DM with two attacking no.8s. Probably stupid but he stuck to it even when we had numerous players out.
But based on his time here with our club so far, nothing suggests Amorims a talented coach.
That goal against Soton(?) Proves to be there's a quality player there, the one where he got barely any time and space and he half volleyed it into bottom corner.
Once players find Dorgu and a new RWB - we'll get better I'm sure of it, this system relies on WB's Carragher did a great breakdown of it vs Inter Milan's system. Our WB's just aren't attacking minded enough to just get forward and get forward quick enough. It break's down the entire movement when they're not up and down that line all match. It creates too much space and the forwards don't have any support.
When he came in I remember the fans saying just get this man whatever he wants, primarily because our scouting had been awful. So we did, and it got even worse
True
Look, you could probably put Antony, Martinez and maybe Hojilund down to him. Not absolutely everything though. Our scouting department still has a job to do and they've done a horrendous job at that, and I'm not going to assume we're going to magically get Ruben exactly what he needs this summer either. In the meantime while the club scrambles around the market over the next couple of summers, he's undoubtedly going to have to produce better results and performances than he's currently doing anyway in the PL. With players that are not the best in class.
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That's my take too. More of a resigned quick reply to get the dumb questions off his back.
What's he supposed to say? The years of poor investment and mismanagement at this great club is painful to see in person. Even our star player and Captain is often a liability. The club staff is being forced to eat soup for lunch to cut expense and the stadium roof is still leaking.
Where does this "ETH ditched his system" idea that keeps getting brought up come from?
We wasted all of last season trying to get his lunatic zero-man midfield system to work. If anything, one of the reasons he failed is that he didn't ditch his system and switch to something more suited to the PL.
Sure enough, results only picked up in the last few games of the season and the FA Cup final because Wilcox forced him to play more pragmatically.
Admittedly remember feeling that as well. Especially that one training ground video where they were doing some first touch stuff.When he came in I remember the fans saying just get this man whatever he wants, primarily because our scouting had been awful. So we did, and it got even worse
In hindsight how much standards have fallen, drooling over premier league players improving their first touch passing!
Truth be told , I should have been much harsher. Losing a Champions league SF to spurs the way he did should have disqualified him immediately. That and the Ronaldo nonsense
Just saying 'oh we need a better striker or CM or CB' is the most surface level, pointless type of opinion possible. All teams can basically upgrade all positions, there are very few truly world class players. Some fans act like United is unique, it's only us where players take years to learn a system, its only us where you have to back a manager with a load of players. How about a manager proves themselves good enough to get backed, that would be refreshing for a change?
I do believe in a fair crack though, even if most bigger clubs would have binned him off by now in my opinion, so I would happily give him the summer window because we have had many internal issues in general IF he can get something, anything going in terms of how we play. Or a trophy.
PL: Played 15, W4, D3, L8 GD-7 is indefensible form. He has goodwill to still be here and I think most will buy into him if we can go on a little run, or win a cup, honestly it's never been easier to be United manager from a results perspective, I would bite your hand off for 10th! I do think he can do it, but only if he stops trying to be so specific to his vision so immediately. WBs on their natural sides, use the width, put balls into the box, drop the defensive line, press from a lower position on the pitch and be happy with less possession. Just accept it can't all be perfect this year in terms of what he wants but he can keep most of his principles and the formation.
So what you're saying is that Dorgu and the new RWB will completely transformer this system, unrecognizably so? Sounds to me we will still be reliant on counter attacking, just we will have more crosses...
Haven’t we missed the most big chances in the league this season? If that’s true, sounds like the service issue is secondary.
if he manages to get his type of players in, instead of some of the crap we have now he will get there
Just like your posts.
Firstly, when was the last time a manager had 8 weeks pre season? We start pre season early-mid july, with early August PL start.. that is 4/5 weeks of pre season. He has had 4/5 weeks where we have 1 PL game per week and he has now shown any signs of improvement, not even 2% improvement.
We will make signings but I dont think we need to target players that can only play this 1 system.
We dont know that about City, he didn't go there so all of it is just assumptions. I am sure you assumed City to win the PL this season and challenge too.
Need to remember that Eth actually over achieved with the league position last year. On all metrics United should have been 15th with how we played and the chances we created. We are now in this position because an FA cup blinded all our support and ineos to keep eth in a job and now we are seeing the issues laid bare.
Should amorim do better? Yes, but for anyone to be so blind to not see that our players are so far off it shouldn't shock you on the scope of the job ahead for the manager. The bad buys of players that eth wanted have also caused major issues. Anthony, mount, casemiro, onana, hoijlund zirkzee...is about 400 millions worth of duds.
Right actually I dont understand this.
One one hand you are saying ETH should have got sacked sooner because the PL position was better than metrics... then Amorim with the same players, does worse than Ten Hag and the fault is the players.
So same players - Ten Hag - Bad he deserved to be sacked
Amorim - Good because its players fault.
The hypocrisy in that post...
So If you want to keep consistent, the board should sack Amorim at the end of the season right? Otherwise they are repeating the same mistake with Ten Hag.
We all saw it happen in front of our eyes. He switched after the Brentford/Bmouth game and just played Ole ball. Second season onwards was him trying to get whatever his plan was going, it was mental but he went out on his sword at least.
Of all the weird lies which live on through being repeated at the caf, this is the most odd and easily disprovable. Wilcox does not have a say in the the first team's tactics whatsoever, he would be involved in hiring a new manager giving his opinion to Berrada on which style he thinks would suit the current team, that he could then build his game model from for the youth teams (so a pretty huge black mark against his name so far given Amorim's struggles and the fact our youth teams don't do this) but no coach would come to United if there was effectively another 'coach' above them giving tactical direction. it makes zero sense and is just a way for people who can't take any joy in that FA cup unless it can be taken away from Ten Hag.
You're completely misinterpreting that statistic if your takeaway from it is "ETH overachieved".
Nope.
Like I said, this season is not the time to judge him. We sometimes score goals that are a product of his system. We sometimes don't. Every time Salah scores a goal is it a product of Slot's wonderful system? Of course it isn't.
Playing a left footer on the right, is not weird. Dorgu has played there before. We've been doing it a lot this season and I can only assume that we'll be doing it even more next season. Fans were frustrated, but fail to see the very obvious logic behind it. We were never getting relegated. Just overly dramatic fans who like to wallow in negativity.
Ten Hag had us playing basketball style end to end football. It was completely unsustainable.
Do you know where we sit on that scale?
Edit: I see we’re joint seventh. Needless to say, it suggests that finishing is arguably just a bit an issue as chance creation.
You can't win games if you don't score goals. We have no goalscorers in our team. That's nothing to do with the manager.
Over achieved league position, not over achieved in what he did. United on all stats should have been 15th last year, we overachieved by finishing 8th. The reason for my post is that we shouldn't be surprised with being 15th in the table. This has been our level for 2 seasons and it was all orchestrated by keeping eth in a job.
It comes from the man himself. We were all duped into believing that we were getting total football, only to be told that he couldn't get us to play that way.
What we saw last season, wasn't his initial intention. It was the result of him losing any sense of identity and bending to the players wishes in allowing them to play the only way they knew how. Transitional football.
It's the quality of those chances that I'm worried. Firstly we're creating a small amount of chances, and honestly I'd be hard pressed to remember how many were clear cut.
It's always some odd looking attempt from the edge of the box which ends hitting the first player in front.
I'd be interested to see a poll of where people would see our current best XI finishing over a season.
Seems to be some wildly different takes. I can't see how anyone thinks our set of goalscorers and midfielders is top half material but many seem to think we should be top 6 or higher.
Seems to be some wildly different takes. I can't see how anyone thinks our set of goalscorers and midfielders is top half material but many seem to think we should be top 6 or higher.
I don’t think I agree with that. We’ve missed massive chances often this season, too.
The argument for giving a manager time is generally a fair one. But not if the system is deemed fundamentally flawed, who makes that decision though.
Good post, mate. Unfortunately, I say save your breath with this lot. There's just a bunch of hate-mongering people here who have swallowed the media agenda against United and Amorim and are here to repeatedly preach it endlessly to you every 2 minutes. They're just waiting for him to fail or get sacked so they can say "I told you so". Then watch them do it again to the next sad sack that takes over because he didn't pander to our useless players and worship St. Rashford. Everyone talks a big game about a rebuild and changing the culture and sacking Jose/Rangnick/Ole/ETH but can't take it when reality hits. Our fanbase are just like our players, spineless.
Hojlund scored 10 goals last season. He has 1 under Amorim.
Bruno scored 10 goals last season. He has 4.
Garnacho scored 7. He has 0.
Amad has 5 in 13, he is the only attacker who has done well in this system (and it's basically always when he plays RWB), at 10 I think he only has 1 goal.
There has to be some acceptance/scrutiny of how an entire attack is struggling?
I hope so, though this logic applies to basically every manager ever.
Yep, it wasn't overachieving. Because individual quality bailed him out in a lot of games the position was higher than it should have been. Now that those players are no longer performing at that level, we are where we should have been. Though that's also because terrible tactics and formations.
I really don’t get how anyone could somehow attribute the system to some of the misses we’ve seen from Garnacho this season. Looks far more like a loss of form for a young player, which is normal.
Its good that you say loss of form from a youngster is normal.. isn't development normal too? So the players who done well last season, should develop further right?
I.E Hojlund? He hasn't and the management and coaches have to take some blame too because they have been utterly usesless since they came in.
You can only get so much out of individual players, but that's where the system is supposed to come into play.
Arsenal are 2nd in the PL and have scored 51 goals. They only have one player in the top 30 goalscorers in the league. That player is Kai Havertz, who is famously not a good goalscorer. Their 2nd highest goalscorer is a center back. So they are getting goals through a system rather than through strikers that can score goals.
It seems like you're conflicting my encouragement from hanging with the best teams in the country with satisfaction. Nobody is sitting here saying well we've played well against the best, so what's the problem? Everyone is annoyed when we don't turn up against the lesser teams, so is Amorim! I think it's fair to say Liverpool away was our best performance of the season, did you see him after? He was fuming because he is seeing what we are all seeing, that against the lesser teams we fall to pieces when we're expected to control games and be on the front foot.
Salah's having the best season of his career so far. His stats have been better than they have been any time under Klopp. And Slot took a Gravenberch who rarely played under Klopp, made him a mainstay in his team and look like a world beater. Also just as a recent example, they scored a goal against City that was straight from their training ground. Not sure Liverpool is the best example to bring here.
Playing a left footer on the right isn't weird. You are being completely oblivious and missing the point. Playing a guy who's new to the league, in a new country, play a position where he has very little experience in, in his very first game is weird. Dorgu played RW for Lecce not RWB. I'm sure you can understand both positions are very different. My issue with your point is that you think Amorim is a talented coach, which based on his time so far here, he's shown nothing of. And neither is Amorims system sustainable if we continue to concede 2-3 goals every game even with 3 CBs on the pitch while creating and scoring feck all ourselves.
How did the squad get into this state ? I know we bought a lot of very very poor players - but haven't the people who made those decisions gone and the top bloke from City joined ? Is nothing happening because of lack of funds ?
I believe you know more football than average Joe bro.
Formation 4231, 343, 541 in as much is different, the set-up is the main point.
How the team sets up is the MAIN PROBLEM.
Even Sean Dyche, plays 4231 but how does he set up his team.
The 4231 is profile of players in my opinion. You cant play Hojlund as a Goal Keeper or as Defender.
You cant play Ugarte as No 9. So Ugarte in the 2 midfield in (4231) is just a profile .
Now how do you set-up... Imagine a 4231 of Sean Dyche and a 4231 of Ole.
Same Formation but the set-up of the team is absolutely opposite.
Honestly we can't say Sean Dyche 4231 Burnley was playing like Ole 4231 United.
This now is what matters the most. The team set-up and how the manager does it.
Even 433 of Pep was different from 433 of Klopp or Ancelotti.
Then other factors come into play,
player profile
League dynamics.
Stage of the team evolution
In EPL , League dynamics is the most crucial thing. Players with physicality, pace and tenacity will tend to do well no matter the team therein. See the Forest team of this year.
So Amorim biggest problem now is he has not learnt EPL dynamics.
1. In EPL you CAN NOT succeed with 2 midfielders.
2. In EPL you CAN NOT succeed without physicality and Pace.
3. In EPL you CAN NOT succeed with a poor striking force.
This is for anyone aiming to win the league,..
The evolution of the team, we are not in that stage now. AGREED.
So we start that journey now. How do we do that.. just follow the known and provable method.
Amorim has stung out all the pace in the team, and he has brought a defender in, instead of a midfielder. Now you can see why we struggle.
This same players were 8th under ETH.
Under Amorim we are 17th place since he arrived. Do you see the change in our fortunes
Nice selective statistics there. How many did Hojlund score before Amorim arrived this season? I’ll give you the answer: also 1. Could it be that defenders have figured him out and he’s actually just not that very good?
Bruno has scored 6 this season, not 4.
We’ve all watched Garnacho squander countless chances. Trying to blame that on the manager is frankly laughable.
Our attack is toothless.
I just wish people could see through the noise.