My only problem is with Amorim is his stubborn adherence to his favourite formation. I really don't think that's the way. My favourite manager is Carlo Ancelotti for a reason. I usually watch Real Madrid matches too. I remember, last year Real Madrid had a huge injury crisis (at one point two midfielders played in the defence and this year too) and Ancelotti changed the system quite often depending who was available. He used four different formations and they succeded, won the domestic league and the CL too. I know the spaniards have one of the best squads at the moment but still, a bit more flexibility would help to get better results. I know this squad wouldn'be good enough for top4 finish but definitely better than the current 14th. United are playing with fire and that's scary as we're talking about one of the biggest, most popular team of the planet.
Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach
- Thread starter sewey89
- Start date
We have more pieces of the puzzle than we realise, but the problem is we’re almost sacrificing some of them right now to do other jobs. Eg
Bruno in CM instead of no10. He’s playing deeper to help progress the ball because we don’t have the CBs or CMs to do it. Buy a CM that can do it and we fix two positions, as Bruno can move to no 10.
Amad at RWB instead of no.10. He’s played here to offer width and a threat. I’ll explain why I think this is critical in a minute. But buy a RWB with attacking threat and we again solve 2 positions, as Amad can move back to the no10 role.
Then obviously a good CF will change the whole dynamic. Hell even somebody like Mateta would revitalise our whole attack.
Coming back to the wing back issue, here’s why I think this is really crucial. At Sporting he used his WBs to push high and wide, which spread out the opposition horizontally across the pitch and gave the CMs, 10s and the CF room to operate centrally. However every team of we play right now is leaving the WBs as they’re no threat, and will only make their way out to them when they get the ball. This makes them compact and hard to break down. This is absolutely key to making this system work. But we need WBs that offer enough threat to keep the opposition humble and worried. Then we need somebody in midfield and even CBs that can pick out diagonal balls to them. Having this will make the opposition have to deal with them more tightly, and will open up that space centrally.
I think we’ve got some players that can do that, such as Dorgu at LWB. Maguire and Martinez are decent at finding the passes through the lines and to the WBs, maybe even Yoro too.
I think we need a CM with good passing ability, an explosive RWB who can offer that threat out wide, then a CF. Defence and 10s are ok for now if we sign these players. But any further improvements in those positions is a bonus.
We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
Come on lad, that’s a stretch.
Even if that did happen, an injury or two and we are back to being a team that plays like relegation fodder.
This system needs more surgery than 3 players to even be mid table.
Probably need a midfielder for beside ugarte too,only problem is when we build Ruben's first eleven,we are an injury or two away from having to count on some of these bluffers again. And we will get injuries cause for some reason we buy broken players or our medical side of the club is terrible. How do Liverpool avoid injuries. We've had couple at least "key" players out at all times for last three years I reckon. We get one back another one goes. Started with Carroll on eriksen,then Shaw,varane,martinez,mount,amad and even yoro. I'm sure there's loads more.
I think you'd be surprised. A world class striker who nets a minimum of 20 goals in the premier league would push us into the top half.
It would be incredibly unlucky for the three new starters to all be injured at once, but it would also be incredibly lucky to sign three players who walk straight into the first 11 and play well, so there is that.
What's the common characteristic across all of those signings...none of them are great athletes.
Almost every single pound spent under EtH was on a player who was either slow, weak, always injured...or various combinations of the three.
Until we bring in some physicality, we're going to continue to struggle UNLESS we revert back to a low-block to counter our lack of physical attributes.
Its no more or less complicated than that. Its not about systems, its simply that our players can't run, can't win duels and are always injured.
Recruitment under Ten Hag ruined us completely. He was trusted with a massive rebuild and we can't even name one player who has been a definite success. 99% of us wanted to do the same with Rashford and Antony and now Amorim is getting the blame. Don't get me wrong, we should still be doing better and we can't continue losing this many games but talk about being dealt a tough hand.
No one is blaming Amorim for ETH's mistakes. They correctly assign blame for his failure to improve performances.
Nice straw man, no one is calling for Amorim to be sacked.
However, he has given supporters little reason to be optimistic about the future of this club.
We should expect more from the players AND the manager. When they don’t perform they should expect criticism.
People who accept mediocrity until there’s a complete squad overhaul are dreaming. Given our financial status, this will take 5+ years.
And flopped less than Amorim despite being terrible himself
This is just from the last few pages. People have been calling for him to be sacked for a couple weeks now. I don't know what rock you've been living under but learn what a strawman means and use it correctly next time.
Fair enough but it's well known that at most well run clubs their football structure dictates playing style and leads recruitment.
He is getting the blame for the Rashford and Antony situation from many people. I don't think that's fair considering nearly all of us wanted to get rid.
We aren't creating anything though, we are just playing hoof ball. When we are playing with 7 defensively minded players every game, and only 4 players with any attacking capability, no striker can do much with that.
I’m not convinced most people wanted us to send them off on loan with no replacements. It was fairly apparent that one injury to Amad and we would suddenly look very short of cover.
Even if the Rashford situation was irredeemable, it didn’t make any sense to also loan out Antony. He was getting regular minutes and can, in theory, cover a few different positions.
I stand corrected, I wasn’t aware people were already calling for Amorim to be sacked.
Yeah, Potter had a 7-7-8 record in the league and there were clear signs of improvement towards the end of his time there.
Amorim is currently on 5-3-8, so needs 10 points from 6 matches to equal Potter’s record. I think if he gets that, we will be starting to see some improvements, as this next run of matches looks tough. Obviously, the Europa is also a big focus for him - exit that and the pressure will massively ramp up.
Personally don't think people really want to see him out this very moment, but are scared of a repeat of an ETH summer, at least I am. We don't have the money for big moves, so hoping a summer transfer window will make us play well if nothing points to that before summer is optimistic at best and naive at worst. Easy to see a situation where Amorim would be sacked around November, leading to a repeat of this season.
For that reason, I think it's better to cut ties if there's no improvement, we simply lack funds to go all in on a vision that has failed to convince yet
If we continue on the current trajectory we will more likely get 4-6 points from our next 7 games some of which are tricky.
Herein lies the problem, anyone saying getting a striker changes the dynamic drastically isn't assessing performances critically.
There are clear coaching issues that Amorim is responsible for, the disjointedness of the defence to midfield is his responsibility because his system essentially renders the midfield obsolete and the spaces between outfield players is too significant.
I keep mentioning Alonso in posts because from a coaching perspective his iteration of the 3-4 base of the formation is day and night more efficient than Amorim's. It's not player personnel but the philosophy in how the ball and spaces are used.
As it stands Amorim's coaching capabilities is questionable, the bar is incredibly low coming in mid season I think a 10th place finish would have been totally permissable. Fans can't turn a blind eye and have this blind faith because even the manager by his own admission is saying the present circumstances for himself interpersonally is unacceptable.
The interview with Rio is a real life reflection on failure, not a sentimental hypothesis where money is drummed up as the solution as has been the argument for every manager at United.
Additionally, Amorim will have to work with the vast majority of the same players next season, the exception being the more senior profiles like Case / Eriksen etc. He will be lucky to get three additions in the summer given the financial situation. I really don't think any amount of players is going to change things substantially without adaptations to the coaching / tactical methods deployed in games. It's all too predictable.
But he doesn't have any other options than to play those defensive players at the moment because the squad is depleted. Even the forward options we have aren't performing.
Things are never as good as they seem when things are going well and are never as bad as they seem when things are going bad.
This team is only a few players away from playing the way he would want, thanks to some good young signings we have rotation for the season ahead too.
For me the priorities are another WB, CM and CF. Hopefully you can get another GK too for cheap.
The only way this formation can work is if we have two world class wing backs, a world class box to box midfielder and two extremely mobile #10s. And we probably need two of each to succeed as otherwise we will always be one injury away from being a complete and utter failure (like we were in ten Hag's days when everything had apparently been predicated on Martinez's health).
There's a spanking or two on the horizon I fear. I get what people are saying about us having an unbalanced squad and players are only worth what someone else will pay for them but nearly every single player bar Bruno and Amad have gone down in value majorly. That means we either overvalue players or we aren't getting their worth out of them. Rashford doesn't look like a 300k a week player at Villa nor does Sancho at Chelsea. We've been very bad at evaluating the market and by default then our own squad too.
All that aside. No manager since Ole has had us playing good football either. That is totally unacceptable
All that aside. No manager since Ole has had us playing good football either. That is totally unacceptable
No he isn't though, can you at least provide some examples?
Yeah, what was Potters issue again? Oh yeah, they had 55 players and had to change in the hallways and couldn't play 5 v 5's in training. What a shame that must have been. Meanwhile our bench is full of kids that have never kicked a ball for the United first team.
You know this, maany people know this.. yet all our managers dont know about midfield set-up.
If Amorim sort this, we gain a spring in our football and set-up
Eh?
People rightly criticised Ten Hag for not playing the Ajax way, the very reason as to why he was hired, Ten Hag even openly admitted the players aren’t capable of playing the Ajax way, & he rightly got criticised for changing his style to suit the team.
Now Amorim is getting criticised for NOT changing his style to suit the team
Even when he had choices, he still preferred to go ultra defensive. We've seen Diallo perform very well at wing back, even if it's not his ideal role it was still miles better to have him there and someone else at #10 rather than pretend Maz can be a wing back.
Coping mechanism.
In all metrics, Amorim is worse than ETH. Take time and look it has been explained here extensively.
Worse squad because of what? Your perception or what? It's Amorim who shipped off Rashford and Antony, we should blame ETH or Annihilate for that?
Nobody cares about playing style in name... heck, even invent a new style we dont care. We need to win games and win big trophies.
You cant win more games and trophies when you are playing basketball game ( ETH) or when you play defensive game ( Amorim)
People dont care that much, they just want to win more games
Not for me, it makes no sense. Ole wasn‘t crap either, and certainly not LvG and Mourinho.
There is one constant in all this, it is the club.
So, 3 new signings would be the "open heart surgery" everyone is talking about? On the other hand, you can buy the best striker on the planet he would fail as our other players literally cannot serve him with good passes, crosses. Can you imagine Haaland in our team? The guy couldn't score 10 goals in one season. So i guess 3 new signings wouldn't be enough. We literally need a complete overhaul which seems actually impossible due to the poor economic situation of the club.
Ive got nothing against the man himself and dont think he is a terrible manager but in the 4 months he has been here and we have seen zero improvement while looking worse than we were before and it has become clear that without spending at least £300m on new players to make his system work but we dont have anywhere near the money to do that so keeping him in charge is pointless as he will continue to fail here.
He was and I don't want to take anything away from him or Ancelotti. Pragmatism has its place, no doubt at all. But we have to look around, other teams have plans, they recruit with purpose not just on reputation. My personal view is, pragmatism is the right approach on a game to game basis, but over a whole season or even longer, you benefit a lot by having a plan. We have just witnessed what a pragmatist can do - Ole came in, brought a simple game plan and went for it. It had very good short-term effects (of course other reasons as well) and it brought some stability. But it was never on the same level as our competitors. Of course we can bring in somebody who sets us up with a deep block, put Chido and Garnacho up front and go for long balls. Just watch the game against Fulham, we were almost there anyways! But it is a waste of time to follow a strategy that has no possibility to get us where our opponents are. You think, Pep wouldn't know how a simple game plan looks? He knows but he goes for something else and the success is probably confirming his approach. Look at Brighton. Look at Brentford. Thats the level of sustainability we have to achieve.
Throws in random numbers and assumption as if thats really helping your point. Would 3 month of no improvements be fine? How much worse would 5 month of no improvements be? Why at least 300m? Why not 350m? Or 700m? Or 150m?
Lets just call it, you don't trust Amorim. Thats fine. No need to beat around the bush. Nobody has to trust him.
Yea, and I think the simple answer, apart from our soft belly and most coaches preferring to shore up first, develop attack second - is that some of our wingers were candidates for WB and some just aren’t or are way off. I think if you put Marcus Rashford at WB you’re basically saying ‘I’ve chosen to play 2-4-4 instead, because that’s how good Marcus Rashford is’.
Yeah, it would be more case dependent - for example against Bodo or Steau that would have been a positive move in my opinion. Putting more creative guys in the 10's like Eriksen/bruno and playing Zirkzee whilst pushing Rashford LW and Amad RW super high. You can always accommodate players (if they are worth it) like with Pool and how they compensate for Salah's lack of tracking back, issue I guess is we don't really have anyone good enough to accommodate.Yea, and I think the simple answer, apart from our soft belly and most coaches preferring to shore up first, develop attack second - is that some of our wingers were candidates for WB and some just aren’t or are way off. I think if you put Marcus Rashford at WB you’re basically saying ‘I’ve chosen to play 2-4-4 instead, because that’s how good Marcus Rashford is’.
I think if you gave this manager Fulham's team and Silva ours in the last game Silva would have found a way to win
He's being out managed by more pragmatic managers. I don't see how he's going to get these players that stay on up for next season.
He's being out managed by more pragmatic managers. I don't see how he's going to get these players that stay on up for next season.