Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach

ribad said:
this thread in something..

no coach will turn onana into a keeper or hojlund into a decent striker.

great second half, the quality on the bench was just embarrassing to see.
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Do you not understand it’s Amorim’s fault Hojlund and Onana are hopeless ?
 
A positive is that he's starting to turn the loses, into some draws. Draw against Everton, a win vs Ipswich, draw against Fulham and another draw against Arsenal. It's progress at least and small margins considering we're missing heaps of chances and you'd think with a competent striker or two we'll start converting them into solid wins. Said it a while back that losing every week does nobody any good and would result in him being in big trouble with INEOS, so at least he's getting a few results.
 
Adnan said:
We've had players and attacks that were superior to the one we have right now. Antony Martial's hold up play was fine but our issue even then was that we were more comfortable playing as the underdog in a lower block where our forwards would thrive in transition. Of course we need more attackers with the likes of Rashford and Antony possibly leaving the club and it's made our attack weaker with those players not being options anymore and not having replacements for those players. We absolutely need to replace those players and I'm hopeful that our attack will be more complete in the near future.

I think for a team to assert tactical dominance in a game they have be more than adequate in the build up phase. The CBs and the deeper midfielders will have to provide a high level of vertical passing threat without compromising on ball retention. And that then has to be backed up by a strong rest defense where the same players in the first two lines will have to control the transition in a higher line. This team can't do this and hasn't been able to do this for many years due to the players that have been bought.

The teams that do dominate games in-possession are those teams that sacrifice defensive stability for goals. When you as a team have the ability to play higher up the pitch and suffocate the opponent in their own half by pinning them-in. You have then created a situation where you can overload the opponents half with your players which allows for extra passing options for the attackers. And you can only do that if you have a strong rest defense which basically means that you as a team have players at CB and deeper midfield who can control the opponent's quick transitions to keep the opposition pinned in their own half. That then also allows the attackers to press from the front with more effectiveness due to how the first two lines have squeezed the pitch behind them and it also gives them more passing options due to the high volume of players that are committed into the opponents half. We just cannot do this and it's pretty frustrating as a Man Utd fan to see the fundamental issues being ignored which would allow for a system of play to develop at a high level.

1: Can you progress the ball at a high level from the first two lines (CB/mid)?

2: After progressing the ball up the pitch, can your first two lines then contain the quick transitions in a higher defensive line?

The answer to the above questions is no we can't. And until that is rectified we won't be a dominant team. I think the CBs options don't seem too bad and another CB signing would probably be ideal. But you can't get away with the midfield we have if we have aspirations of challenging for the top honours.
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I hear what you are saying, but the problem is we realistically need to improve all areas of the pitch, without having the means available to spend like Chelsea. The quickest way to improve this side is get a better goal keeper and a better Striker (Imagine our side with Alison and Alvarez/Isak). We have a keeper who is practically throwing the ball into his net and with every save is parrying the ball into oncoming striker. Whereas upfront, we have forwards who are basically in line to break record for forward players without a goal in league.

The ideal summer would be to sign Keeper, CB, CM, Left sided No. 10 and a striker. But this will cost us north of 200M. I hope we somehow win Europa, because it will open us to CPL players which is the elite quality we need. Plus would be gift in terms of financial position.

Realistically we may be able to fetch decent money for Antony (20M), Rashford (40M) and Sancho (25M) plus it appears Garnacho may be sold as well (60M). Even this makes it 120M (plus possible sales of Casemiro and letting go of Eriksen, Lindelof etc), so if we somehow shithouse our way to Europa League, we may spend 200M (50 to 80M net only)

If we focus on sign players in CB and CM again and don't sign striker or keeper, we will improve our buildup phase and controlling the game aspect plus our chance creation, however the goal scoring will remain a problem, which is our Achilles heel, plus Onana will further expose himself and we may have to pay somebody to sign him. Eventually we will remain in between 7th to 10th place. But a better keeper and a striker may just give us enough boost to get into top 5.
 
He wants to implement a style of football that doesn’t suit our best players, and today was yet another example of that. Our team is most effective playing a low block, inviting pressure, but he insists on a front-foot approach, as many top teams do today. Unless he can bring in several key players this summer, next season won’t be much better than what we’re seeing now.

We need players who can pass under pressure and recycle possession when needed. A CM like Zubimendi would be transformational for us, much more so than a striker.
 
Shark said:
A positive is that he's starting to turn the loses, into some draws. Draw against Everton, a win vs Ipswich, draw against Fulham and another draw against Arsenal. It's progress at least and small margins considering we're missing heaps of chances and you'd think with a competent striker or two we'll start converting them into solid wins. Said it a while back that losing every week does nobody any good and would result in him being in big trouble with INEOS, so at least he's getting a few results.
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We badly need some players back. It would be a huge advantage to have the likes of Bruno, Mount/ Garnacho alongside Zhrikee as a front three. With Ugarte out. We could not move Bruno further ahead. On Thursday I would play Ugarte Eriksen in the middle with Bruno, Garnacho and Zhrikee up front to give us some chance at scoring. Even from these three realistically only Bruno I can trust with putting chances away. But if we are having to use Hojlund and Zhirkee as two of the three with Garnacho then we are in for a long night on Thursday.
 
Adnan said:
We've had players and attacks that were superior to the one we have right now. Antony Martial's hold up play was fine but our issue even then was that we were more comfortable playing as the underdog in a lower block where our forwards would thrive in transition. Of course we need more attackers with the likes of Rashford and Antony possibly leaving the club and it's made our attack weaker with those players not being options anymore and not having replacements for those players. We absolutely need to replace those players and I'm hopeful that our attack will be more complete in the near future.

I think for a team to assert tactical dominance in a game they have be more than adequate in the build up phase. The CBs and the deeper midfielders will have to provide a high level of vertical passing threat without compromising on ball retention. And that then has to be backed up by a strong rest defense where the same players in the first two lines will have to control the transition in a higher line. This team can't do this and hasn't been able to do this for many years due to the players that have been bought.

The teams that do dominate games in-possession are those teams that sacrifice defensive stability for goals. When you as a team have the ability to play higher up the pitch and suffocate the opponent in their own half by pinning them-in. You have then created a situation where you can overload the opponents half with your players which allows for extra passing options for the attackers. And you can only do that if you have a strong rest defense which basically means that you as a team have players at CB and deeper midfield who can control the opponent's quick transitions to keep the opposition pinned in their own half. That then also allows the attackers to press from the front with more effectiveness due to how the first two lines have squeezed the pitch behind them and it also gives them more passing options due to the high volume of players that are committed into the opponents half. We just cannot do this and it's pretty frustrating as a Man Utd fan to see the fundamental issues being ignored which would allow for a system of play to develop at a high level.

1: Can you progress the ball at a high level from the first two lines (CB/mid)?

2: After progressing the ball up the pitch, can your first two lines then contain the quick transitions in a higher defensive line?

The answer to the above questions is no we can't. And until that is rectified we won't be a dominant team. I think the CBs options don't seem too bad and another CB signing would probably be ideal. But you can't get away with the midfield we have if we have aspirations of challenging for the top honours.
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While I agree that adequate isn't enough long term for midfield and defence, it certainly trumps our attack right now, which is entirely inadequate. This isn't about accepting the current standard as the end goal, this is merely about the order of priorities.

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. No matter how effective the midfield and defence is in both directions, I don't see remotely enough quality in our attack for our manager to get the goals out of this team he needs to survive another season. Both in terms of results, but also in terms of giving the fans something to have faith in. Another low scoring season with little to cheer in front of goal will have the fans turning, even if we start to have better possession and positional play. There's already a perception that the manager is defensive due to the need to play two full backs at wing back, which is rather unfair. But prioritising improving our defensive and midfield base at the expense of our attack would test many fans' patience.

Besides, I disagree with your assessment about why we struggle to play out of the back. My view is that it's incredibly difficult to play out from the back when your front players fail to stretch play, fail to make effective runs into space, fail to hold the ball up, and fail to win their duels. We're routinely leaving our defenders and midfielders 1 or 2 bad passing options instead of 3 or 4 good ones.

I don't think any defence or midfield can be so good that they can maintain territorial dominance with an attack that will routinely lose the ball in 1 to 3 passes, and lacks the legs to press high and get it back. So even if we had the absolute best CBs and centre mids in the world, I don't think we gain much more than incremental gains in terms of end result. Our underlying game might improve, but our end product, not so much.
 
crossy1686 said:
We've played well in a low block since Ole, nothing is new there. Our issues have always been with breaking teams down who play a low block, and that has also been present since Ole, we just have worse players now.
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That's been an issue since Fergie left
 
Ludens the Red said:
Think that’s a little too simplistic a view.

I think it’s obvious we do have a fair few game raisers in our team. That’s now defeats avoided against city, Liverpool and Arsenal twice.

We were terrible in that first half going forward because of the players not utilising the system well.
Our wide cbs were too deep, Mazraoui was too deep and Garnacho was too wide.

Second half all of a sudden Heaven and De Ligt are coming out more, Lindelof is pushing forward. Garnacho is moving across attacking areas, balls moving quicker and we suddenly look very threatening.

But it’s not natural for the players and that’s why they struggle with it. I think going in 1-0 surprised the team and their confidence was lifted and all of a sudden they started taking risks. I mean I’ve never seen Mazraoui that far forward so constantly.
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I think once the players accept that they're the inferior team they find it much easier to perform. That's why we're game raisers.

When we play a Brighton our players and fans expect us to go at them and they lose their heads when Brighton start outplaying them. Until we are a top team we should act like the underdogs in most PL games.
 
MonkeysMagic said:
If Amorim had 5 or 6 good PL quality players, even with his tactics and formation that he gets pelters for, we'd be easily in top 8 or even knocking on CL spots.

Instead what he has is 1 good player in Bruno and then 15 average to poor players and 5 truly dreadful players! Players should improve individually with any new manager but these players have shown time and again that their capacity to stink the place out is never diminished. I'd like to see where he would get to with 2-3 transfer windows and 7-8 players to fit his tactics/formation. But given our dealing in transfers and the dreadful nature of players, this won't happen.
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We have more than 1 good player. Come on. They might not be world class but Mazraoui, De Ligt, Yoro, Ugarte, Amad and Mainoo are very good players.
 
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quadrant said:
While I agree that adequate isn't enough long term for midfield and defence, it certainly trumps our attack right now, which is entirely inadequate. This isn't about accepting the current standard as the end goal, this is merely about the order of priorities.

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. No matter how effective the midfield and defence is in both directions, I don't see remotely enough quality in our attack for our manager to get the goals out of this team he needs to survive another season. Both in terms of results, but also in terms of giving the fans something to have faith in. Another low scoring season with little to cheer in front of goal will have the fans turning, even if we start to have better possession and positional play. There's already a perception that the manager is defensive due to the need to play two full backs at wing back, which is rather unfair. But prioritising improving our defensive and midfield base at the expense of our attack would test many fans' patience.

Besides, I disagree with your assessment about why we struggle to play out of the back. My view is that it's incredibly difficult to play out from the back when your front players fail to stretch play, fail to make effective runs into space, fail to hold the ball up, and fail to win their duels. We're routinely leaving our defenders and midfielders 1 or 2 bad passing options instead of 3 or 4 good ones.

I don't think any defence or midfield can be so good that they can maintain territorial dominance with an attack that will routinely lose the ball in 1 to 3 passes, and lacks the legs to press high and get it back. So even if we had the absolute best CBs and centre mids in the world, I don't think we gain much more than incremental gains in terms of end result. Our underlying game might improve, but our end product, not so much.
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The teams that score the most goals have the strongest foundations as far as playing out from the first two lines and also defending high up the pitch in a higher line. Without having these two functions the teams attack can't thrive or prosper. So having these functions within a team allows the team to be more attacking and hence are by default more dominant.

The forward line is missing players and like I said in my previous post, players like Rashford and Antony will likely be replaced, so I think the forward can only improve from here on in.
 
Cathy Ferguson said:
Do you have any midfielders in mind? I rate Baleba but we can't afford him I'm afraid.
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Depending on how much money will available, I think a move for someone like Adam Wharton from Palace would be a step in the right direction. He also wouldn't come cheap.
 
If we had an attacker like Salah or Diaz then teams would back off us for fear of being caught one on one with them. This would alleviate a lot of pressure on our midfield. Top of our list this summer has to be a young highly rated forward player.
 
Fahad Jawaid said:
I hear what you are saying, but the problem is we realistically need to improve all areas of the pitch, without having the means available to spend like Chelsea. The quickest way to improve this side is get a better goal keeper and a better Striker (Imagine our side with Alison and Alvarez/Isak). We have a keeper who is practically throwing the ball into his net and with every save is parrying the ball into oncoming striker. Whereas upfront, we have forwards who are basically in line to break record for forward players without a goal in league.

The ideal summer would be to sign Keeper, CB, CM, Left sided No. 10 and a striker. But this will cost us north of 200M. I hope we somehow win Europa, because it will open us to CPL players which is the elite quality we need. Plus would be gift in terms of financial position.

Realistically we may be able to fetch decent money for Antony (20M), Rashford (40M) and Sancho (25M) plus it appears Garnacho may be sold as well (60M). Even this makes it 120M (plus possible sales of Casemiro and letting go of Eriksen, Lindelof etc), so if we somehow shithouse our way to Europa League, we may spend 200M (50 to 80M net only)

If we focus on sign players in CB and CM again and don't sign striker or keeper, we will improve our buildup phase and controlling the game aspect plus our chance creation, however the goal scoring will remain a problem, which is our Achilles heel, plus Onana will further expose himself and we may have to pay somebody to sign him. Eventually we will remain in between 7th to 10th place. But a better keeper and a striker may just give us enough boost to get into top 5.
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I think the best way forward to improve the team is to focus on three priority signings with two further signings on the cheap. Personally I'd prioritise a CB, midfielder and a winger like Quenda and bring in a GK and a additional forward on the cheap for the short-term.
 
Tosicsleftpeg said:
I like the way he adapts to big games. What's the point in all out attack against teams who can pick you apart. We need to be like that more often at the moment due to our lack of quality.
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Simple points but they say it all. United should have won but under the circumstances I`m relieved we had a 1-1 draw. I also think some are underestimating how much the experience of going through all this will help the young players in the longer run - you`ve got to go through it to get to it.
We need somebody like Steve McLaren around to help Mainoo and others develop the positive, winning mentality they need.
 
I'd be fine if he morphs into Nuno for a little bit while we get our signings going. But the worrying thing is we don't even have good counter attacking players anymore. Zirkzee - Garnacho - Eriksen - Bruno is so much weaker than Rashford - Martial - Greenwood - Bruno.
 
Olecurls99 said:
If we had an attacker like Salah or Diaz then teams would back off us for fear of being caught one on one with them. This would alleviate a lot of pressure on our midfield. Top of our list this summer has to be a young highly rated forward player.
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We already have one, he is injured.
 
Credit where credit is due, coming up against the 2nd best team in England that just scored 7 in the champions league he sent the team out in the right way to not get embarrassed and could have won the game. Wasn't a resounding success because they still conceded but defending was good for the most part.

It's good he's not an zealot like Ange. The rest of the season should just be about playing with that back 5 and not conceding, that would be a good foundation to bring into next season with hopefully some goal scorers added in the summer.
 
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crossy1686 said:
We've played well in a low block since Ole, nothing is new there. Our issues have always been with breaking teams down who play a low block, and that has also been present since Ole, we just have worse players now.
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Under Mourinho as well. Except for LvG (don't remember anymore how it was under Moyes) we've been a counter attacking team mostly in bigger games. Haven't had players and quality (or manager) to dominate and control games for a long time. Ten Hag gave up on his football after 2 games and went for similar in 22/23.

On today: credit to Amorim for making those 2 changes right as Arsenal scored. Players didn't go into panic mode but actually took initiative and were proactive after conceding and we could've won it. We've been definitely good enough against 3 rivals in City, Liverpool and Arsenal (another game vs City coming in April) so don't have many complaints about that. However, against all the teams that are above us and aren't those 3 clubs we've been struggling a lot.
 
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I know the results are still not there but it feels like we’ve been much easier on the eye the last few weeks. It’s not perfect by any means and goalkeeper mistakes and poor finishing doesn’t help but it’s not as turgid as it was.

Small improvements at least. Please can Garnacho to Hojlund find a goal. It’s killing me watching those two.
 
This is going to be a much quieter thread until Thursday now that all the usual suspects can’t moan as usual :lol:
 
sparx99 said:
I know the results are still not there but it feels like we’ve been much easier on the eye the last few weeks. It’s not perfect by any means and goalkeeper mistakes and poor finishing doesn’t help but it’s not as turgid as it was.

Small improvements at least. Please can Garnacho to Hojlund find a goal. It’s killing me watching those two.
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My impression as well. Didn't watch the Everton game but all the others since Spurs (including that one) found positives given our current injuries situation. Doesn't have to mean much but we'll see.
 
Eugenius said:
And the goal we scored was off the training ground and a tactical masterstroke?

In any case, it's basically still the case that going low block counter attack is the best we look in this system. Probably not much else to do, given the injuries but not really a sign of us getting "better", we clearly suit this type of game where we don't need to have much possession. Goals aside, our ability to build from the back was pretty shocking, and that is something that should be sorted on the training pitch.

We deserved to win on balance. I was half expecting us to crumble after the equaliser but we actually came on stronger.
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No it was not a tactical masterstroke, I don't think I claimed it was.

However, you did mention that low block and counter is the best we look - I partially agree. However, I do not think that is necessarily how Amorin wants us to be set up, but that is how we have been playing for quite some time - probably due to the calibre of players we have at the club.

If playing out from the back is the metric you utilize for progress, then fair play. But do keep in mind we had Lindelöf and De Ligt as part of the back 3, along with a 19 year old Yoro who was replaced by an 18 year old Premier League debutant. If you couple that with the starting midfield today and the shaky keeper at the back, that is not necessarily the best crop to have such an expectation regarding playing out the back.

As bad as it was perceived, we definitely dropped 2 points.
 
Onana, our ball playing Gk, made 29 long balls with only 4 being a success. So that equals to 25 times ball turnover just by our Gk who wasn't part of creative passers. Just imagine that, 25 times turnover caused by United goalkeeper.

I don't think his 25 turnovers was part of Amorim's strategy. And this turnovers has feck all to do with midfielders and CBs. More than often, our 3 CBs did offer him options to pass. He just fancied to twat the ball up front.
 
stepic said:
This is going to be a much quieter thread until Thursday now that all the usual suspects can’t moan as usual :lol:
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I'm sure the usual one or two will still find some way to remind us all about how we have a 4th-8th rated squad.
 
crossy1686 said:
We've played well in a low block since Ole, nothing is new there. Our issues have always been with breaking teams down who play a low block, and that has also been present since Ole, we just have worse players now.
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I don't mind us playing low block for now. At least, not after he spend 200+m on players.
 
bosskeano said:
fecking Hojlund with his dick in his hands on that one
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Definitely credit to Rice , but if you watch the replay closely don't think Hoijlund is looking to shoot even as he gets tackled. Pretty sure he's taking another gd touch. Definitely low on confidence at the moment.
 
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