Ruben Amorim | United meet Sporting release clause

He's a different coach, with different tactics, different personal strengths and weaknesses.

Just having the same vague profile doesn't mean he'll do exactly as well or as badly as the previous coach, otherwise Villas Boas would have been the new Mourinho.

Fair enough! As I say i know next to nothing about him so it's interesting to get perspectives of those that do.

I'm not even sure if he does have any similar profile as I've not watched a Sporting game in the last 10 years, let alone since he's been their top man.

At the end of the day any appointment is going to be a gamble, interested to see what he brings
 
Conte won the PL with Moses and Alonso as the wingbacks. One of whom was a winger, both of whom were a bit shit.

Football doesn't become a radically different game once it takes place on English soil.
True, but Sporting are dominating most teams in Portugal whereas we have to do a lot of defending in the PL against teams better than us. So a wingback at United would have to defend more and that is why I don't think any of our wingers would excel in that role. Garnacho and Amad are too weak defensively. Antony can defend but seems a lost case attackingwise. I would assume that Dalot and Mazraoui will be our wingbacks. Shaw is great but lacks stamina and should only play for 70 min.
 
Disagree on the improvements by end of the season, he should improve the team immediately, we also should expect a top 4 finish, maybe it's not gonna happen but the team should at least try it, also go deep in Europa league, the improvement in performances and playing must happen within the first 10 games, other coaches did it, I know Amorim will need time but I don't think we should wait until end of the season to see improvements, results are also important, let's stop this wait and see mentality and just expect better from our team who we all know is not a team that should be sitting in 14th in the league.

Better than 14th yeah that's a given. I think you could have left Ruud in charge and got better than 14th. Top 4 isn't as simple though, I'd be happy with us keeping pace and matching the top 4 points totals from now to the end of the season. To claw it back from where we are to overtaking them seems a stretch though, all whilst implementing a completely new system that is going to have teething problems given no one in the squad has ever played in a 343 before.
 
Disagree on the improvements by end of the season, he should improve the team immediately, we also should expect a top 4 finish, maybe it's not gonna happen but the team should at least try it, also go deep in Europa league, the improvement in performances and playing must happen within the first 10 games, other coaches did it, I know Amorim will need time but I don't think we should wait until end of the season to see improvements, results are also important, let's stop this wait and see mentality and just expect better from our team who we all know is not a team that should be sitting in 14th in the league.

Is that not contradictory? You're saying "we should expect" to qualify for the CL, which basically paints anything less than that as failure, but then immediately following that up by acknowledging that it might not happen.

Personally, I think Arsenal and Villa have looked a bit off the pace this season, both dropping points unexpectedly. The latter in particular you'd expect to drop off. Seven points isn't insurmountable at this point of the season. However, we've also got to hope Spurs and Chelsea can't keep the pace, and there are no other surprise challengers in the way Villa were last season.

We all obviously want to see improvements, and we definitely need to be finishing higher in the league than we currently sit (I expect top 7 as a worst case, looking at everyone else), but the most important thing is that we start putting the building blocks in place and start looking like we know what we're doing. Results might well be a bit Jekyll and Hyde, as they were when Klopp first took over at Liverpool.
 
Sporting vs City, Champions League, November 4th, I have to watch this game now.
To be honest it will depend a lot on the players attitude.
In the last game (league Cup) against a weak opponent, it was clear they were a bit nervous and the general atmosphere in the stadium was... weird.
This evening we´ll have another match at home and - with everything more clarified - we´ll see how it goes.

I was confident 2 weeks ago that we could beat city at home, but now... either the players want to say goodbye with an excellent performance - and the macth will be interesting - or they don´t and it will be a disaster.

So I don´t think it will be a good test for Amorim. More for the players than for the manager
 
Better than 14th yeah that's a given. I think you could have left Ruud in charge and got better than 14th. Top 4 isn't as simple though, I'd be happy with us keeping pace and matching the top 4 points totals from now to the end of the season. To claw it back from where we are to overtaking them seems a stretch though, all whilst implementing a completely new system that is going to have teething problems given no one in the squad has ever played in a 343 before.
The only given is that City will be there or thereabouts at the end of the season (unless they get a hefty deduction), Slot is still in the honeymoon period, the wheels may or may not come off at some point and Arsenal are struggling a bit but will probably still be fighting top 2-3..... however we are only 7 points behind Arsenal in 3rd and Villa in 4th, only 9 games played, and there are big question marks over Villa, Chelsea, Spurs, Brighton and Newcastle, all will drop points.... I am not getting over excited, or expecting league winning form from us under Amorim, but 4th or even 3rd is still well within reach, we could easily be top 4 by Xmas with a good run of results

If I was to predict right now before Amorim has even dipped his big toe into the role, I would predict it will be a tight battle for 4th between us, Chelsea and Villa, I reckon Chelsea 4, us 5 and Villa 6, but it will be down to the wire
 
He seems to be the kind of manager who will work with whatever hes got than to be a purist to implement his "philosophy". Ive always thought the club need a manager like that.
 
Sporting Club of Portugal (not Lisbon..) supporter and MU fan, here.

We are upset with R Amorim departure, of course, but not with Man United actions.
I believe MU is doing things elegantly: you need a coach, Amorim has a very good present and a tremendous future as a coach. So it´s only natural that you go for him. The timming is terrible for us but...it is what it is.

I watch PL games every week and have seen many (English) analysis about how Sporting plays and people seem to expect Amorim to implement that in a couple of weeks. You have to be realistic: it will take much more than that.

When he arrived at Sporting (even in his first title) the team was not playing as forward as we are now. He didn´t start with two wingers as wing-backs, but with 2 defenders with liberty to go forward and only later - when the way he wants to play was better understood by the players - he started to use wingers (first one, than two). In the first title many of our wins were by one ( or two) goals. Many scored in the last minuts.

Nowadays Sporting is playing like I´ve never seen (even better than the great1982 team): attacking, controlling the games and not conceding opportunities for the opponents to score.
But having 9 wins in 9 games with 30 goals scored and only 2 conceded in our (poor...) domestic league and 7 points in 3 games (2 away) in the champions league (5-1 in goals) is the result of 4 years with the team and many, many hours of work.

He is a very good (albeit stubborn) coach, a great communicator and the players really seem to like him and follow his ideas. But the process will take time.

So the big question is; will you give him time ?



I don’t think it’s a big question at all, he will get time. Apart from Moyes, every United manager has got plenty of time. We barely sack managers prematurely.

Most fans have already said, this season get us CL, either EL win or top 4. Even if he doesn’t, its not a big deal as long as we see massive improvement and a style of play.

I don’t mind him starting a bit more conservative, I think a lot of us fans would like to see us solid, difficult to play against then look at improving our attack.

When people say it takes time, it really doesn’t. We have seen in the last few years, Emry, Ange, Slot even Alonso has shown it doesn’t take a year, a few months is enough to show something.
 
Sporting Club of Portugal (not Lisbon..) supporter and MU fan, here.

We are upset with R Amorim departure, of course, but not with Man United actions.
I believe MU is doing things elegantly: you need a coach, Amorim has a very good present and a tremendous future as a coach. So it´s only natural that you go for him. The timming is terrible for us but...it is what it is.

I watch PL games every week and have seen many (English) analysis about how Sporting plays and people seem to expect Amorim to implement that in a couple of weeks. You have to be realistic: it will take much more than that.

When he arrived at Sporting (even in his first title) the team was not playing as forward as we are now. He didn´t start with two wingers as wing-backs, but with 2 defenders with liberty to go forward and only later - when the way he wants to play was better understood by the players - he started to use wingers (first one, than two). In the first title many of our wins were by one ( or two) goals. Many scored in the last minuts.

Nowadays Sporting is playing like I´ve never seen (even better than the great1982 team): attacking, controlling the games and not conceding opportunities for the opponents to score.
But having 9 wins in 9 games with 30 goals scored and only 2 conceded in our (poor...) domestic league and 7 points in 3 games (2 away) in the champions league (5-1 in goals) is the result of 4 years with the team and many, many hours of work.

He is a very good (albeit stubborn) coach, a great communicator and the players really seem to like him and follow his ideas. But the process will take time.

So the big question is; will you give him time ?
I feel like the fans will. United fans have actually been pretty patient with all their managers since SAF retired, sometimes to a fault. There's a very vocal core of reactionary fans online (mostly on twitter, but a fair few on this forum now as well) that feel it's more important to be right than try to support the players and the manager, who will no doubt start busting out the memes as soon as the first wobble under Amorim hits.

His biggest problem will be the media though. United are always big news. In many ways their last decade of under performance has completely overshadowed City's decade of domination. Negativity breeds interaction, from both United fans and those who enjoy seeing them languish. Just look at the comments from Souness today. Unfortunately, a lot of fans get swept up in this as well when things are going badly, and only add to the pressure on the team.

I think one of EtH's biggest problems was that he was completely swallowed by this in the end. SAF gets a lot of revisionary criticism now for being authoritarian with journalists 'just doing their jobs', but that job was often to extract a comment or sound bite that fit a story they already wanted to write because they knew it would sell papers. It's become far too easy for the media to pick at United's carcass now, and this must affect the players you'd think. They aren't shielded from this like they used to be. The best way to do that is to be successful, obviously, but when you aren't at that stage you need your manager to create a siege mentality from something else.

I think Amorim will get time, but it's not going to be smooth. He'll need to ride those moments out a lot better than EtH did. I think if we see some kind of progress and identity emerge, like when Klopp first went to Liverpool but they still struggled, then he might just get the time he needs. Get the players we have performing better, continue to develop Mainoo and Garnacho, integrate more youth where possible. The thing is, EtH did all this at first, but it peaked in around February of the first season, then we lost 7-0 to Liverpool... injuries derailed the season, but in truth it was the first sign EtH couldn't find answers when he needed them.

Amorim will need to show he can overcome setbacks better than that.
 
Results might well be a bit Jekyll and Hyde, as they were when Klopp first took over at Liverpool.

The inherited team is different here. Amorin will have a very good squad to chose from, I know people seem to think this squads rubbish but with a proper coach, we can show something. We may not go on title form but last 5/6 season, you dont need to be super consistent to get top 4.

We just have to hope that during sometime this season Amorin can put together 6/7 wins straight, that gets you into top 4 shout straight away.

Especially, if you start taking points of Villa, Spurs, Chelsea, Brighton and those teams. Its like this sundays game, its so important for Amorin's sake that we dont lose this game.

Coming in 9 points off Chelsea would be a complete different scenario coming 3/5 point. He has everything to play for, 3 cup competitions and top 4.
 
The inherited team is different here. Amorin will have a very good squad to chose from, I know people seem to think this squads rubbish but with a proper coach, we can show something. We may not go on title form but last 5/6 season, you dont need to be super consistent to get top 4.

We just have to hope that during sometime this season Amorin can put together 6/7 wins straight, that gets you into top 4 shout straight away.

Especially, if you start taking points of Villa, Spurs, Chelsea, Brighton and those teams. Its like this sundays game, its so important for Amorin's sake that we dont lose this game.

Coming in 9 points off Chelsea would be a complete different scenario coming 3/5 point. He has everything to play for, 3 cup competitions and top 4.

Why do people keep saying this?

We haven't got a left-back, and we haven't got anything remotely resembling a senior striker. The goalkeeper might also be a bit iffy and our midfield still regularly finds itself relying on Eriksen and/or Casemiro.

We've got a decent squad with a lot of potential, but it's by no means the finished article.
 
Genuine question.

Had Berrada been in place before EtH's contract was extending, anyone else think EtH would have gone and we'd have got this guy in the summer?

By all accounts this is a push from Berrada with his City knowledge of him and he was available.
 
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Why do people keep saying this?

We haven't got a left-back, and we haven't got anything remotely resembling a senior striker. The goalkeeper might also be a bit iffy and our midfield still regularly finds itself relying on Eriksen and/or Casemiro.

We've got a decent squad with a lot of potential, but it's by no means the finished article.

Absolutely nobody is saying this squad is the finished article.
 
He seems to be the kind of manager who will work with whatever hes got than to be a purist to implement his "philosophy". Ive always thought the club need a manager like that.
Absolutely. When you delve into the totality of his time at Sporting, whilst the formation has remained the same, the profiles of players in those roles has changed. He initially had a fluid front three then when Gyökeres arrived, adjusted to play a target man as the spearhead. He initially began with traditional wingbacks then moved to wingers.

--

Another point on Conte - he didn't even play that system for the entire season but switched to it during a defeat to Arsenal from memory and stuck with it. I can't see our formation change being so seamless but I am sure he will stick with it.
 
Why do people keep saying this?

We haven't got a left-back, and we haven't got anything remotely resembling a senior striker. The goalkeeper might also be a bit iffy and our midfield still regularly finds itself relying on Eriksen and/or Casemiro.

We've got a decent squad with a lot of potential, but it's by no means the finished article.

Did I say its the finished article?

"We haven't got a left back" Well we do have 2.. Shaw and Malacia, they are injured. We have Hojlund as a striker and a backup in Zirkzee, whilst Rashford has played there alot.

Just because the previous manager used Eriksen, doesn't mean we dont have Mainoo, Ugarte ?

I said its a very good squad, which is completely different to what Klopp walked into.

We have 2 competent RB's, 6 CB's, CM's, attacking mids, wingers, so I am not sure why you are arguing its not a good squad.
 
Why do people keep saying this?

We haven't got a left-back, and we haven't got anything remotely resembling a senior striker. The goalkeeper might also be a bit iffy and our midfield still regularly finds itself relying on Eriksen and/or Casemiro.

We've got a decent squad with a lot of potential, but it's by no means the finished article.
The left back position has been a huge problem for a while, but perhaps doesn`t have to be a big issue if Amorim comes in a plays a quite attacking 3-4-3 setup.

I think decent sells us short. Disappointed as we are right now, there are still not many clubs with stronger squads than we have.
 
Why do people keep saying this?

We haven't got a left-back, and we haven't got anything remotely resembling a senior striker. The goalkeeper might also be a bit iffy and our midfield still regularly finds itself relying on Eriksen and/or Casemiro.

We've got a decent squad with a lot of potential, but it's by no means the finished article.
He plays with wingers as the wing backs so we don’t need a left back in his system. The goalkeeper is now very good and is good enough on the ball for his style. We don’t have a senior striker, but Højlund fits his style very well as an out and out striker and will be fed the ball a lot more. The base of our midfield is thin with Kobbie and Ugarte being the two and Case and Eriksen being backups, but Case seems to be rolling back the years again and will be offered a lot more protection in this system.

I think people talk about our squad as if it’s shit but it’s actually full of talent that were just asked to play suicide football.
 
Better than 14th yeah that's a given. I think you could have left Ruud in charge and got better than 14th. Top 4 isn't as simple though, I'd be happy with us keeping pace and matching the top 4 points totals from now to the end of the season. To claw it back from where we are to overtaking them seems a stretch though, all whilst implementing a completely new system that is going to have teething problems given no one in the squad has ever played in a 343 before.
I agree with bolded exactly, if it gets us top 4, that's amazing, if it gets us to go deep in EL or even win it to get a CL spot, fantastic, if not, at least we can say Amorim did his best and the team was winning consistently but the bad start affected us, it is a tough ask on Amirom and the team but there has to be high expectations and standards and accountibility from all.
 
Genuine question.

Had Berrada been in place before EtH's contract was extending, anyone else think EtH would have gone and we'd have got this guy in the summer?

By all accounts this is a push from Berrada with his City knowledge of him and he was available.
Yep I've been saying this for months. Berrada and Ashworth's comments prior to the Liverpool game were telling, they both distanced themselves from the decision to trigger the option on ten Hag's contract. If everything was in place I'm convinced they would've followed through with the decision to sack him.
 
Why do people keep saying this?

We haven't got a left-back, and we haven't got anything remotely resembling a senior striker. The goalkeeper might also be a bit iffy and our midfield still regularly finds itself relying on Eriksen and/or Casemiro.

We've got a decent squad with a lot of potential, but it's by no means the finished article.
Because we have, we have many players to choose from to build a complete new formation the team has never used before. In the past 10 years, it's been mostly 4-2-3-1 with a very small variety of 3-5-2 on occasion. On paper we have plenty of options to fit into that, now it's the managerial setup's work to see who fits where most.
 
Did I say its the finished article?

"We haven't got a left back" Well we do have 2.. Shaw and Malacia, they are injured. We have Hojlund as a striker and a backup in Zirkzee, whilst Rashford has played there alot.

Just because the previous manager used Eriksen, doesn't mean we dont have Mainoo, Ugarte ?

I said its a very good squad, which is completely different to what Klopp walked into.

We have 2 competent RB's, 6 CB's, CM's, attacking mids, wingers, so I am not sure why you are arguing its not a good squad.

I literally said it was a decent squad. It's not "a very good squad" though, which is what you claimed.

Shaw and Malacia are injured, so we don't have a left-back.

Are Hojlund and Zirkzee senior strikers? No. Rashford is done. He scores at a worse rate than John Hartson managed. He's just not the man, and we will never be able to rely on him to lead the line. As I said, we have no senior striker.

Klopp took Liverpool from 8th to 8th in his first season, in a year that saw Leicester win the league on 81 points, while City had the lowest points total to finish top four since Everton finished there over a decade prior, and Chelsea finished 10th. He also inherited a squad that contained Coutinho, Henderson, Milner and Firmino (and Gomez, but he was injured).

The left back position has been a huge problem for a while, but perhaps doesn`t have to be a big issue if Amorim comes in a plays a quite attacking 3-4-3 setup.

I think decent sells us short. Disappointed as we are right now, there are still not many clubs with stronger squads than we have.

There aren't many with stronger squads than us, but there are at least three (City, Arsenal and Liverpool), and then there's probably a similar number with similarly strong squads (Chelsea, Spurs, Villa). As I said, worst case, top seven, but we still stand a decent chance at top four if we can put some good results together.

He plays with wingers as the wing backs so we don’t need a left back in his system. The goalkeeper is now very good and is good enough on the ball for his style. We don’t have a senior striker, but Højlund fits his style very well as an out and out striker and will be fed the ball a lot more. The base of our midfield is thin with Kobbie and Ugarte being the two and Case and Eriksen being backups, but Case seems to be rolling back the years again and will be offered a lot more protection in this system.

I think people talk about our squad as if it’s shit but it’s actually full of talent that were just asked to play suicide football.

I'm not talking about our squad like it's shit though. I literally said it's decent, I just don't think it's "very good" which is what was claimed.

Too early to say for Onana yet. He could well end up chucking one in again soon. I like Hojlund, but he's yet to have a season close to "prolific", and we have no idea how wingers as wing-backs will turn out, especially as (to my knowledge) Amad and Antony are our only natural left-footers currently available.

I also said I think we're good enough for top four (I would even still argue top three, if Arsenal drop off even more), but if Arsenal, Villa, Chelsea and Spurs all keep ticking over, we're probably looking at seventh, simply because we've left ourselves with a bit of catching up to do.
 
Yep I've been saying this for months. Berrada and Ashworth's comments prior to the Liverpool game were telling, they both distanced themselves from the decision to trigger the option on ten Hag's contract. If everything was in place I'm convinced they would've followed through with the decision to sack him.
They 100% backed him with a but attached.
 
Is that not contradictory? You're saying "we should expect" to qualify for the CL, which basically paints anything less than that as failure, but then immediately following that up by acknowledging that it might not happen.

Personally, I think Arsenal and Villa have looked a bit off the pace this season, both dropping points unexpectedly. The latter in particular you'd expect to drop off. Seven points isn't insurmountable at this point of the season. However, we've also got to hope Spurs and Chelsea can't keep the pace, and there are no other surprise challengers in the way Villa were last season.

We all obviously want to see improvements, and we definitely need to be finishing higher in the league than we currently sit (I expect top 7 as a worst case, looking at everyone else), but the most important thing is that we start putting the building blocks in place and start looking like we know what we're doing. Results might well be a bit Jekyll and Hyde, as they were when Klopp first took over at Liverpool.
You are right, it is indeed contradictory and I worded it wrongly, it should say (we should try for top 4), my point was the team should go for top 4 and play to win all games to get close to the top 4, we do not know how the other teams will perform but our team should at least go for it, start putting points on the board immediately and see what happens, we could end up 7th or 3rd depending on what happens in the league but I still want to see wins and points in the league as well as improvement in the performances, and I disagree with the last part, Klopp took over a terrible Liverpool team, this team has far more better players overall, and should be doing a lot better.