Ruben Amorim | United meet Sporting release clause

I have no idea if Amorim is going to be a success but I'm just glad that:
(1) we've made a replacement straight away and not arsed around with an interim for the next 6 months. I don't think I could have handled another season wasted with a dead duck interim, even if it was a club legend!
(2) looks like he'll be able to bring his coaching team with him. Parachuting him into this shitshow on his own and saying "OK Ruben sort this out" would be just setting him up to fail.
(3) I can finally relax in the knowledge that the next appointment will not be Gareth Southgate or Graeme Potter!
 
JagUTD said:
Guaranteed success. Sporto have never sent us a dud before and are unlikey to start now.
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joedirt87 said:
That's a pretty common defensive set up that a lot of teams defend with no? 2 banks of 4 ahead of the two most attacking players.

I'm not a fan of 3 at the back, but if it works for him cool, and he can always adjust. More important is that he is able to adjust the tactics and not be a rigid fool like ETH had been.
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Yea, you're right. A lot of teams do it. Even Arsenal do it. It was funny to see earlier in the season when some people were complaining about how Bruno was too high and right next to Hojlund when it was clearly our defensive shape.
 
Scanny said:
Speed of movement would have been parting ways with ETH shortly after the FA cup final but better late than never I guess.
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True, but it seems increasingly clear that they wanted to give ETH every one of his 9 lives before pulling the trigger. They've been planning this scenario for a while.
 
I am a little ambivalent about all this. For one, I am still a bit shocked about the sacking (not the fact ETH got sacked, more that he got sacked now) but I think it looks very positively that we seemed to be prepared and have taken the steps to bring in a replacement quite early. Also it seems it might have been the first choice. Very professional, very decisive, I like it.
I personally would probably have tried to bring in somebody with less of tactical differences. I mean, we went down the route of fullbacks inverting, now it is wingbacks and we have none of them... I've seen a few listing Dalot and Maz, very different profiles to the guys who play those positions for Sporting. I also think Amorims supposed style of a narrow front three might cause issues for Rashford and Garnacho and Bruno. From what I understood, Amorim likes it narrow and I think it will get quite crowded with not a lot of time on the ball. People not comfortable on the ball was an issue with ETH already so we'll have to see how that pans out.

Just lets note that Amorim is more or less something very similar to what ETH was, when he joined. I definitely don't think the club made a mistake with either of them but lets see how things go. I'd definitely recommend making sure a therapeut is in place to take over Amorim when needed, from what I read he is pretty big on pressing (execute own pressing effective, exploit oppositions press) and he thinks the center is the most important part of the pitch... Especially the last thing couldn't be more foreign to most of our players.
 
NZT-One said:
I am a little ambivalent about all this. For one, I am still a bit shocked about the sacking (not the fact ETH got sacked, more that he got sacked now) but I think it looks very positively that we seemed to be prepared and have taken the steps to bring in a replacement quite early. Also it seems it might have been the first choice. Very professional, very decisive, I like it.
I personally would probably have tried to bring in somebody with less of tactical differences. I mean, we went down the route of fullbacks inverting, now it is wingbacks and we have none of them... I've seen a few listing Dalot and Maz, very different profiles to the guys who play those positions for Sporting. I also think Amorims supposed style of a narrow front three might cause issues for Rashford and Garnacho and Bruno. From what I understood, Amorim likes it narrow and I think it will get quite crowded with not a lot of time on the ball. People not comfortable on the ball was an issue with ETH already so we'll have to see how that pans out.

Just lets note that Amorim is more or less something very similar to what ETH was, when he joined. I definitely don't think the club made a mistake with either of them but lets see how things go. I'd definitely recommend making sure a therapeut is in place to take over Amorim when needed, from what I read he is pretty big on pressing (execute own pressing effective, exploit oppositions press) and he thinks the center is the most important part of the pitch... Especially the last thing couldn't be more foreign to most of our players.
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Watching this I'd say it'll suit the majority of our players including Bruno and Dalot. I don't see how Rashford will manage it though as he can't play in these tight spaces at all so he'll be a backup striker.

The only major gap I can see is at LB but we had that issue with Shaw and Malacia anyway.
 
Infestissumam said:
I was having a good laugh just now as I saw an ESPN article about what went wrong for ten Hag at United. In between paragraphs, they had links to articles/sound bites from yesterday afternoon from the likes of Dawson and Ogden, titled "Sacking of ten Hag shows that Ineos don't know what they're doing" and "United interested in Thomas Frank to replace ten Hag". I don't know what's more satisfying, to have a competent hierarchy who knows what they're doing, or to see some of those media hacks having egg on their faces because of our hierarchy's decisiveness.
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Was listening to Ogden, Dawson, and James Olley on their new “Football Reporters” ESPN podcast. All three of them were talking complete cobblers. Ogden reckoned Southgate wouldn't take the United job because it would ruin his reputation (!!!) and that we would be “scraping the barrel” for unemployed managers. He said that was based on conversations he’d had just before the show. - Massively embarrassing for him, or it should be. He's obviously got really poor sources. I don't think I've heard him get anything right, news-wise, for years.
 
Read it in their forum that the similarities between the state of both united and sporting before his arrival was quite similar with both paying off his 10m clause at the start of the season.

They finished fourth that season and won the league the next, couldn't complain were he to take the same trajectory over here.
 
In Absentia said:
Was listening to Ogden, Dawson, and James Olley on their new “Football Reporters” ESPN podcast. All three of them were talking complete cobblers. Ogden reckoned Southgate wouldn't take the United job because it would ruin his reputation (!!!) and that we would be “scraping the barrel” for unemployed managers. He said that was based on conversations he’d had just before the show. - Massively embarrassing for him, or it should be. He's obviously got really poor sources. I don't think I've heard him get anything right, news-wise, for years.
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Ogden is the Michael Oliver of journalism
 
I am one of these weird traditionalists in the sense that I’d prefer a more proven manager who has won things in big leagues, and ideally in the premier league. Mourinho was toxic but statistically our best manager.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say this is a risky appointment. But I acknowledge that for me I want to guarantee a certain baseline (top 4 for 3 years in a row sounds lovely), whereas Amorim might be the right choice if we’re taking more risk but for potentially more of an upside (an actual big title, a dynasty, or a real fork in the road towards the better since 2013).

I am nervous but excited. Which is exactly how I felt when we hired ETH so there is that.
 
Red the Bear said:
Read it in their forum that the similarities between the state of both united and sporting before his arrival was quite similar with both paying off his 10m clause at the start of the season.

They finished fourth that season and won the league the next, couldn't complain were he to take the same trajectory over here.
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I’d be very surprised if we managed 4th at this point, the competition is just far too strong, but stranger things have happened.

I’d hope that our expectations are to finally start progressing as a team on the pitch, with an established identity and a solid top half finish for us to build upon next season.
 
Amorim is probably best possible choice atm (most exciting certainly). Think Frank and Iraola are doing fine job at Brentford/Bournemouth so will be interesting to see where they go next.

Amorim is similar appointment to ten Hag in terms of doing really well in European league (Portugal probably similar in terms of quality to Netherlands) but managing United is whole different level. He could be another Mourinho or another Villas-Boas, no one can tell.

Bruno has been our best signing of post-Fergie era so hopefully Amorim will be our best manager in post-Fergie era.
 
Squeaky_Bum_Time said:
I am one of these weird traditionalists in the sense that I’d prefer a more proven manager who has won things in big leagues, and ideally in the premier league. Mourinho was toxic but statistically our best manager.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say this is a risky appointment. But I acknowledge that for me I want to guarantee a certain baseline (top 4 for 3 years in a row sounds lovely), whereas Amorim might be the right choice if we’re taking more risk but for potentially more of an upside (an actual big title, a dynasty, or a real fork in the road towards the better since 2013).

I am nervous but excited. Which is exactly how I felt when we hired ETH so there is that.
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I think some of my trepidation is the similar backgrounds of ETH, who was the right choice at the time, and Amorim, who appears to be the right choice at the time. On “proven managers”, it’s something I had considered but I’m not sure who really fitted into that category, in all honesty. Graham Potter, Gareth Southgate, Thomas Frank, Terzic etc aren’t proven for a few different reasons. The only one who was, who was only ever mentioned in passing, appeared to be Allegri.
 
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Smores said:
Watching this I'd say it'll suit the majority of our players including Bruno and Dalot. I don't see how Rashford will manage it though as he can't play in these tight spaces at all so he'll be a backup striker.

The only major gap I can see is at LB but we had that issue with Shaw and Malacia anyway.
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I worry that Garnacho is equally ill suited for playing in tight spaces. Amad might actually be a good fit for the narrow AM role, and I think Bruno and Mount would be fine as well (Mount if he's ever fit)
 
Squeaky_Bum_Time said:
I am one of these weird traditionalists in the sense that I’d prefer a more proven manager who has won things in big leagues, and ideally in the premier league. Mourinho was toxic but statistically our best manager.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say this is a risky appointment. But I acknowledge that for me I want to guarantee a certain baseline (top 4 for 3 years in a row sounds lovely), whereas Amorim might be the right choice if we’re taking more risk but for potentially more of an upside (an actual big title, a dynasty, or a real fork in the road towards the better since 2013).

I am nervous but excited. Which is exactly how I felt when we hired ETH so there is that.
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Mourinho is an interesting example given where he arrived from when he first moved to England.
 
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