'We are starving for leaders on the pitch": has Amorim just exposed the true scale of the problem facing United

I’m not sure the issue is lack of leaders, to me it feels like we have too many main characters, most of which view themselves as leaders either by example or vocally.

Most of them seem unwilling to take direction, or shit, off another team member, all seemingly convinced they are the best player at the club. If it isn’t going too well for them, they hide and seem to want to avoid becoming the social media scapegoat.

New players/leaders are added incrementally, and rather than change the ethos, they just slot into it over a period of time. I’m not sure there are many players out there who have the strength of character to drag our current squad together.
 
BuzzKillington said:
I’m not sure the issue is lack of leaders, to me it feels like we have too many main characters, most of which view themselves as leaders either by example or vocally.

Most of them seem unwilling to take direction, or shit, off another team member, all seemingly convinced they are the best player at the club. If it isn’t going too well for them, they hide and seem to want to avoid becoming the social media scapegoat.

New players/leaders are added incrementally, and rather than change the ethos, they just slot into it over a period of time. I’m not sure there are many players out there who have the strength of character to drag our current squad together.
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What you're essentially saying is we have a group of egomaniacs and narcissists
 
I think the issue with leadership is true. If you look at our team right now the only players you could really consider leaders :

  • Bruno : Too petulant and not disciplined enough to be the leader we need.
  • Martinez : Hasn't been performing particularly well for a while and normally you'd want your leaders to be consistent performers
  • De Ligt : Still new to the club
  • Maguire : In and out of the team but when he was captain his performance levels were poor
  • Evans : Hardly plays due to his age
  • Casemiro : Terrible performances recently
Otherwise there are not really any standout leaders. The only way I see to fix it is to bring players in with leadership qualities.
 
Attacking wise the main characters in the team for previous 2 seasons have been Bruno, Rashford and Casemiro.

All 3 have had large periods of bad form, is it a lack of leadership? lack of form? lack of skill? age? call it what you want.
 
Giggsy13 said:
No one cares what the fat Spanish waiter has to say. Amorim has more leverage than rangnick ever did with the players, so his comments will have far more weight and impact on the squad.
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Amorin has Ineos, who have shown themselves to be ruthless off the pitch, behind him so the players should be fearing for their futures.
 
I'm thinking that Amorim is looking at Maguire to lead from the back based on his comments

Another solution could be an experienced player looking to get his coaching badges to play as player/coach for a season to hold it all together on the pitch

Or have the role of vice captain for defence and another for midfield
 
Red Rash said:
I think the issue with leadership is true. If you look at our team right now the only players you could really consider leaders :

  • Bruno : Too petulant and not disciplined enough to be the leader we need.
  • Martinez : Hasn't been performing particularly well for a while and normally you'd want your leaders to be consistent performers
  • De Ligt : Still new to the club
  • Maguire : In and out of the team but when he was captain his performance levels were poor
  • Evans : Hardly plays due to his age
  • Casemiro : Terrible performances recently
Otherwise there are not really any standout leaders. The only way I see to fix it is to bring players in with leadership qualities.
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Not starboyish esque enough for the 3min youtube/tik tok/stat nerd generation like
 
Red Rash said:
I think the issue with leadership is true. If you look at our team right now the only players you could really consider leaders :

  • Bruno : Too petulant and not disciplined enough to be the leader we need.
  • Martinez : Hasn't been performing particularly well for a while and normally you'd want your leaders to be consistent performers
  • De Ligt : Still new to the club
  • Maguire : In and out of the team but when he was captain his performance levels were poor
  • Evans : Hardly plays due to his age
  • Casemiro : Terrible performances recently
Otherwise there are not really any standout leaders. The only way I see to fix it is to bring players in with leadership qualities.
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Sure. This is how every problem is supposed to go away. We aren't playing well? Bring in better players. Workrate and athelticims sucks? Bring in other players. We lack leadership? Lets go to the market.

At some point, maybe the penny drops that adding 3 or 4 players every year isn't going break the hindrances that exist in the team. I'd see the point if we get rid of all of them at the same time. That would be a hard reset. But with this small numbers, it isn't going to work. And lets face it, the number is probably rather smaller than bigger because our fans are sure that only the best of the best talent in the work is good enough to help mighty ManUnited. Onto the next decade I guess
 
Andersons Dietician said:
It’s hard to buy leadership and it’s also hard for someone to walk in to a new environment and demand the respect of multi millionaires who think they have made it. You’d have to be a special character and have accolades and money beyond what any of them have. Then have the character to lead the, and show it on the pitch.

We tried it with Ronaldo, he called them out on it said they didn’t desire it or listen to him so if he can’t do it then there is no one on this earth that could.

You look at some of the people like DeLigt, Martinez, Casemiro, Maguire, Bruno you’d look at those characters and think those are your leaders but it seems like they’ve had it beaten out of them or don’t want to step up.

If there are people in the squad that don’t want to listen then they need to go, and the guys mentioned above need to step up and lead. If they see an issue deal with it.
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Spot on. It's strange how players who've shown strong leadership qualities have joined and not shown them at all. It's like they've found a culture so estranged from what they're used to that it's knocked the confidence right out of them.

Maguire is an interesting case because he clearly tried and failed. The pressure on him was immense, and maybe other players have noticed—it's not exactly a situation others will want to put themselves in the spotlight for.

The good thing is that Amorim seems to be doing the right thing in both protecting his players and asking them to take a step up. Protecting players was also something Ole was quite good at for all his other faults as a manager, which is why I think we got some decent performances out of our players despite some horrible losses.
 
Saunteraway said:
A good mate of mine supports Liverpool, and after what they did we naturally talked quite a bit about rebuilding a squad not only in footballing terms but also when it comes to a winning culture and leadership. (After Klopp he knows everything there is to know about that topic, of course…)

He showed me a podcast from the time of Klopps tenure before it klicked.

They talk about principles of a healthy dressingroom and winning mentality.

I think we all agree that our rotten dressingroom has to change, but other than ‘they need a kick up their ass!‘ I haven‘t seen too many solutions.

What I found extremely interesting about it is that the sports psychologist they have on as a guest explains very detailed how such a process can/should look like. Bonus is he‘s a red :)

So if you can stomach the scouse cnuts hosting it I highly recommend to give it a try, I felt as if they were talking about us several times.

I can‘t post links yet as newbie so:
The anfield wrap - Jurgen Klopp thinking games

Mod edit: link added.
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Great podcast, thanks for the link. It also pretty much highlights what went wrong for us in the last 11 years.

It also highlights the importance to get rid of players like Rashford. If you don't perform to the standards that are needed you are out. Sir Alex was absolutely ruthless this way and we need to return to these standards.

We also need to make sure we are bringing the right players in that can help establish the mindset our team needs. That being said, we are in January and again have no chief squad planner. Ineos is fecking up wherever you look so it's not looking like we will make progress anytime soon as long as we are owned by incompetent cnuts.
 
Most of them have lost regularly games with 4 and 5 goals difference. What kind of leaders can emerge from such results? And you can see that they didn't even feel embarrassed. It was just another day in the office.

They have proved that they are a buch of losers.
 
Who are these people that don’t give a shit? I always struggle when people say we have a team full of players that don’t try…who are they?

Onana committed
Martinez committed
Maguire committed
De Ligt committed
Yoro committed
Dalot committed (?)
Mazraoui committed
Ugarte committed
Mainoo committed
Bruno committed
Hojlund commited
Rashford not
Garnacho commited (?)

So that’s Rashy and maybe Dalot and Garnacho. What am I missing?!
 
friendlytramp said:
Who are these people that don’t give a shit? I always struggle when people say we have a team full of players that don’t try…who are they?

Onana committed
Martinez committed
Maguire committed
De Ligt committed
Yoro committed
Dalot committed (?)
Mazraoui committed
Ugarte committed
Mainoo committed
Bruno committed
Hojlund commited
Rashford not
Garnacho commited (?)

So that’s Rashy and maybe Dalot and Garnacho. What am I missing?!
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What evidence is there that Dalot and Garnacho don't try?

I get that Dalot isn't great at the moment but it's a poor argument to say that he doesn't try.

Maybe I'm missing something with Garnacho aswell but it felt like he's always been committed. He might be greedy at times but lack of commitment has always seemed like a lazy argument brought about when the team isn't winning.
 
friendlytramp said:
Who are these people that don’t give a shit? I always struggle when people say we have a team full of players that don’t try…who are they?

Onana committed
Martinez committed
Maguire committed
De Ligt committed
Yoro committed
Dalot committed (?)
Mazraoui committed
Ugarte committed
Mainoo committed
Bruno committed
Hojlund commited
Rashford not
Garnacho commited (?)

So that’s Rashy and maybe Dalot and Garnacho. What am I missing?!
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Very good point. It's just patently untrue to claim we're a squad where everyone is unprofessional and has a terrible attitude. Ability and suitability is a completely different matter.

As for Dalot, basically every manager has lauded him as the paragon of professionalism. He's in great condition too. It's ability that's often in question with him. Garnacho is probably more questionable - sulky, surly and arrogant maybe but works his socks off on the pitch most of the time.
 
I actually agree with Amorim that there is a lack of profiles or leadership types on the team. Players who step up when the going gets tough.This is where I think the club's transfer policy has failed over the past few (two) seasons. They have deliberately gone for younger players, instead of a mix of talents and experienced players. The closest thing to a leader type we have bought in the last few seasons is perhaps De Ligt.
 
friendlytramp said:
Who are these people that don’t give a shit? I always struggle when people say we have a team full of players that don’t try…who are they?

Onana committed
Martinez committed
Maguire committed
De Ligt committed
Yoro committed
Dalot committed (?)
Mazraoui committed
Ugarte committed
Mainoo committed
Bruno committed
Hojlund commited
Rashford not
Garnacho commited (?)

So that’s Rashy and maybe Dalot and Garnacho. What am I missing?!
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Dalot? The guy who runs nonstop, is always available, and has played the most minutes under all the managers (alongside whoever happens to be the keeper and Bruno)?

Commitment has never been his issue. An inconsistent end product when played on the right and non-existent end product when played on the left are his issues.
 
What we lack is technical leadership, people allude to communication or giving instructions but that's only one aspect of leadership in sport. An aspect that we have totally lacked since essentially Carrick left is someone that takes control of the game through his game, someone that has the ability to impose the appropriate mentality, who knows when to open the game and when to close it. Sometimes Pogba was able to do it but more often than not it would be disrupted by his own bad judgement while Bruno isn't that kind of player, he is a soloist.
 
There's a reason we didn't have a non-Fergie captain until Maguire in 2020, and even then he was replacing Ashley Young, with the only other Fergie players being De Gea and Jones.

We've utterly failed to recruit the right sort of characters.
 
friendlytramp said:
Who are these people that don’t give a shit? I always struggle when people say we have a team full of players that don’t try…who are they?

Onana committed
Martinez committed
Maguire committed
De Ligt committed
Yoro committed
Dalot committed (?)
Mazraoui committed
Ugarte committed
Mainoo committed
Bruno committed
Hojlund commited
Rashford not
Garnacho commited (?)

So that’s Rashy and maybe Dalot and Garnacho. What am I missing?!
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Thats 13 players, maybe you double check on the clubs homepage, if we really only have 13 players. Maybe thats answering the question of what you are missing.

Also for those saying "commitment was never the issue" - if we get outfought on a regular basis and you don't notice, maybe your understanding of commitment is a little different. One of the biggest issues in our club is that everybody is fine with a bad performance as long as he is not the sole culprit. Players like Dalot get hailed for things, that should be the norm, a player like him, with his physique should offer more than the bare minimum. And he should be able to stay focussed for the entirety of 90minutes. This guy is fairly low on the list of issues I guess but I don't really get the attempts to simplify our issues to "just need more time with the system and a few players who are better". I personally think fans play a role too, so desperate to call something world class and to talk about "our best player" when this stuff doesn't mean shit anymore. Great, Dalot shouldn't be questioned, he was the best FB at the club. Maguire might be the best CB we have. If only we would gather points by being able to field our first eleven against all the dross we accumulated around it. We'd win the United league for sure.
 
BuzzKillington said:
I’m not sure the issue is lack of leaders, to me it feels like we have too many main characters, most of which view themselves as leaders either by example or vocally.

Most of them seem unwilling to take direction, or shit, off another team member, all seemingly convinced they are the best player at the club. If it isn’t going too well for them, they hide and seem to want to avoid becoming the social media scapegoat.

New players/leaders are added incrementally, and rather than change the ethos, they just slot into it over a period of time. I’m not sure there are many players out there who have the strength of character to drag our current squad together.
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That's a normal situation when there is no natural hierarchy. If you put a bunch of people that do not standout from one an other, you will end up in a sort of anarchy. Unless someone through actions or character rise above the rest.
The problem from the outside is that United doesn't seem to have anyone that stands out positively whether it is with their attitude or their actions. And there area plenty of players that can impose themselves as leaders but you will need more than one and the issue for United is that I don't know if we have the ability to identify them, with the amount of players that United develops for PL and Championship teams how many are currently leaders for their clubs? Evans is the only one that comes to mind, fostering that kind of character doesn't seem to be part of the club since SAF left, we don't sign or develop them.
 
BenitoSTARR said:
I think it’s a very healthy challenge to the squad. We’re keeping on guys like Maguire who if nothing else have shown character.

What I think he means, as he did expand somewhat, is that we have a lot of young players with few to look up to.

You look at the attacking line for example and who there is a leader?
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If this lot can’t look up to and learn from Casemiro, then they all need gotten rid. It’s also counterintuitive to sign a bunch of young players, bring through academy kids, and then complain about lack of leaders. The freaks of nature like a teenage Rooney are generational.

I mean it in the “lead by example” sense. We have some vocal players who are calamitous as often as they are worthy of emulation (Maguire, Onana), a whole raft of under 21s, some seasoned veterans who can talk about the past glories without being able to replicate this form now (Casemiro, Eriksen without the glories bit), players who featured in more cohesive teams (Eriksen, DeLigt, Licha) and a whole lot of rawness .

What does Amorim even mean by “leaders”? Roy Keane types who are not only brilliant players but also unmerciful in their demands and vocal about it? When we had best in class players it was easier to find leaders. We have a bunch of kids, pensioners, and donkeys. Why would any young player listen to what Maguire or Onana has to say about anything (for example)? I didn’t even mention Bruno as a leader, which says a lot with his omission.
 
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I don’t think we have anyone with proper leadership skills in that squad. Bruno is arguably the best at that attribute but even he is average in my opinion. Maguire gets mentioned a lot, but I think he isn’t a leader who can get people motivated. He is disciplined, handled pressure well, but not a leader who’d fire up his team mates. I really think we have none.
 
united for life said:
I don’t think we have anyone with proper leadership skills in that squad. Bruno is arguably the best at that attribute but even he is average in my opinion. Maguire gets mentioned a lot, but I think he isn’t a leader who can get people motivated. He is disciplined, handled pressure well, but not a leader who’d fire up his team mates. I really think we have none.
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Bruno is likely the worst. It's a player that loses his focus and temper at the first opportunity and he has never been a stabilizing presence on the field.
 
JPRouve said:
Bruno is likely the worst. It's a player that loses his focus and temper at the first opportunity and he has never been a stabilizing presence on the field.
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The worst is a bit of an exaggeration. He loses his temper and this what probably brings him to average (like I mentioned - he’s average). But he is the one who demands the most of the rest of the team
 
united for life said:
The worst is a bit of an exaggeration. He loses his temper and this what probably brings him to average (like I mentioned - he’s average). But he is the one who demands the most of the rest of the team
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Bruno is acting like Henry when he was coaching Monaco, making sure to let the whole world know what he has to put up with, how bad/incapable his teammates are.
Thats not leadership, thats narcissism and egoism.
 
united for life said:
The worst is a bit of an exaggeration. He loses his temper and this what probably brings him to average (like I mentioned - he’s average). But he is the one who demands the most of the rest of the team
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And that's exactly why he is likely the worst. There is nothing more deflating then having to suffer the demands of someone that doesn't match them when it counts and is the most likely to lose it when the spotlights are the brightest. Demanding doesn't make you a leader, what makes you a leader is the ability to inspire, galvanize others and Bruno as far as I know as never had that effect on any team. He is very good individually when his mind is in the right place but that's about it, he doesn't create any synergy technically or mentally.

And to be clear, it's not a dig specifically aimed at Bruno, most players including very good players are like that. Most players are followers, not leaders.
 
Lack of leadership is another way of saying there is a lack of character among the players , in one of his first interview he talked about when players come to big clubs like us you need to look at factors outside of just ability , they need the required character as well. I think he has known all along we have a lot pf players with the wrong mentality to play at a big club with such expectations. We failed speculatively in our profiling of recruits for many seasons now..
 
That's one thing I agreed with Keano, and I am glad Amorim hass seen it straight away.
 
JPRouve said:
And that's exactly why he is likely the worst. There is nothing more deflating then having to suffer the demands of someone that doesn't match them when it counts and is the most likely to lose it when the spotlights are the brightest. Demanding doesn't make you a leader, what makes you a leader is the ability to inspire, galvanize others and Bruno as far as I know as never had that effect on any team. He is very good individually when his mind is in the right place but that's about it, he doesn't create any synergy technically or mentally.

And to be clear, it's not a dig specifically aimed at Bruno, most players including very good players are like that. Most players are followers, not leaders.
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Fair point. Back to my initial post, he is average. though I still believe that given what we have, he is the best leader - not great overall, but better than others in the squad.
 
JPRouve said:
That's a normal situation when there is no natural hierarchy. If you put a bunch of people that do not standout from one an other, you will end up in a sort of anarchy. Unless someone through actions or character rise above the rest.
The problem from the outside is that United doesn't seem to have anyone that stands out positively whether it is with their attitude or their actions. And there area plenty of players that can impose themselves as leaders but you will need more than one and the issue for United is that I don't know if we have the ability to identify them, with the amount of players that United develops for PL and Championship teams how many are currently leaders for their clubs? Evans is the only one that comes to mind, fostering that kind of character doesn't seem to be part of the club since SAF left, we don't sign or develop them.
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Which is what I think Bruno has pretty much done. The problem being he doesn’t come across as a particularly charismatic person. His idea of leading and galvanising the side around him seems to be “give me the ball and I’ll spam wonder balls until something comes off”. He doesn’t really elevate or drag others up with him.

With the benefit of hindsight, we do seem to have a problem with our inability to sign leaders. But at the time we were signing them, players like Casemiro, Varane, De Ligt & Maguire were viewed as such.

I’ve got nothing with regards to how to fix it. It’s fubar. I’m just going to grumble and go along with it, and hope Amorim has a good plan
 
RuudTom83 said:
Attacking wise the main characters in the team for previous 2 seasons have been Bruno, Rashford and Casemiro.

All 3 have had large periods of bad form, is it a lack of leadership? lack of form? lack of skill? age? call it what you want.
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Not true, mctom was ahead of at least some of those.
 
We bought so many players who are not good enough for other teams or arent ready to be starting in the pressure cooker than is Man United. This weird mix players on the decline and players who may never be good enough. We desperately need some proper players in. Might not need a full face lift. Just a couple who cant bring on the rest of them or hold their hands a bit.
 
Well that inspired some to stand up today. Brilliant.

It feels like the dressing room is finally heading in the right direction. For a start there has been no mention of the R word this evening, which is absolute bliss.
 
JPRouve said:
What we lack is technical leadership, people allude to communication or giving instructions but that's only one aspect of leadership in sport. An aspect that we have totally lacked since essentially Carrick left is someone that takes control of the game through his game, someone that has the ability to impose the appropriate mentality, who knows when to open the game and when to close it. Sometimes Pogba was able to do it but more often than not it would be disrupted by his own bad judgement while Bruno isn't that kind of player, he is a soloist.
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Agree with this.
 
Clever bit of management, don’t think it’s a coincidence that he got a big response from a lot of the senior players today
 
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