Yeah, it's incredible that we concede so easily when we line up so defensively/negatively.
Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach | Thread locked during matches
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Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's fantastic win away against Athletic Club in the semi-final of the Europa League.
They also pick out the positives of United's 4-3 loss away at Brentford, and Nik reviews a day out at Old Trafford watching Manchester United Women qualify for the Champions League.
For me it's really hard to judge how Amorim is doing.
Like we weren't bad in the first half. It was fine. Yeah 2nd half we were getting dominated but it wasn't beyond salvage. And then you have a clanger. Which has happened repeatedly. At what point does Amorim have responsibility for the individual clangers if ever? I don't know.
I am just rambling now but we weren't even that bad or anything and yet lost fairly easily 3-1 at home.
Like we weren't bad in the first half. It was fine. Yeah 2nd half we were getting dominated but it wasn't beyond salvage. And then you have a clanger. Which has happened repeatedly. At what point does Amorim have responsibility for the individual clangers if ever? I don't know.
I am just rambling now but we weren't even that bad or anything and yet lost fairly easily 3-1 at home.
He will not be sacked.
Omg what? What was the rush to bring Amorin in now, and not in the summer, if we knew this squad can't work with his formation? We actually told Amorim you either come now or you don't come at all. Why?
Uh, have you heard of Sir Jim Ratcliffe? He's not known for his patience.
Everyone knows how the opposition plays, these days. Nothing statement actually. They created feck all.
Weve beaten
Southampton
Everton
City
Plzen
Steaua Bucharest
The bulk of this squad is completely mentally broken and are now losers in spirit. Can maybe be rehabilitated but probably not
Southampton
Everton
City
Plzen
Steaua Bucharest
The bulk of this squad is completely mentally broken and are now losers in spirit. Can maybe be rehabilitated but probably not
They won’t sack him
And if they do the 100% lose the fanbase and it will be INEOS out for the next decade plus
So the form was never THIS bad under Ten hag, but we now have worse form than fecking Everton in our last 6 league games because he did a number on the players and it's got nothing to do with Amorim whatsoever.
I'm fine with the sentiment that Ten hag failed but this is fecking hilarious.
Move on rashford, garnacho, Antony, casemiro and Eriksen asap and get in 2 top fullbacks for the rest of the season.
We really need players moved on this week.
We really need players moved on this week.
There's no difference but Amorin gets his feet under the table and then has the pre season etc.
I had initially called for Maz and Dalot to be the wingbacks but after a few games I see now that it doesn't work except in very few specific circumstances. The wingback positions need a lot more pace. Dalot and Mazaraoui dont offer us anything great defensively that warrants us sacrificing so much pace and impetus on the ball. I can even maybe accomodate Dalot on the right as he does have some pace but Mazaraoui is 100% not a wingback.
I can't believe I'm seeing the "stop blaming ETH" takes so frequently given that he was heavily culpable for assembling this pile of shite squad that, may I remind everyone, he couldn't fecking get a tune out of either.
It's hardly controversial to say there are some major holes in the system Amorim is implementing right now but, to be fair to the guy, this isn't his squad and it was an absolute train-wreck before he even arrived.
My belief is that the blame for our current predicament lies predominantly with Richard Arnold, John Murtough, and Erik ten Hag. Between the three of them, they have assembled a squad that is so far below par and had it playing some utterly garbage football. Further to that, they spent an eye-watering sum to do it.
It's hardly controversial to say there are some major holes in the system Amorim is implementing right now but, to be fair to the guy, this isn't his squad and it was an absolute train-wreck before he even arrived.
My belief is that the blame for our current predicament lies predominantly with Richard Arnold, John Murtough, and Erik ten Hag. Between the three of them, they have assembled a squad that is so far below par and had it playing some utterly garbage football. Further to that, they spent an eye-watering sum to do it.
Part of me wants to react and blame Amorim but we have seen many of these players fail and fail again, despite picking up more points we were playing much worse football last season under ETH, and Amorim has been unlucky with player mistakes leading to goals, not just today but we have tanked about 4 games by gifting goals, and again today no excuse for us but the refereeing was terrible, Baleba should have been given a straight red or two yellows, regardless he would have been off before Brighton's 2nd.
If I think about it player by player 1-11 how many of our current squad would start for a top half Premier League club?
Amad
Bruno
Ugarte
errrm? maybe Delight, Maz as CB?
Ok so no doubt Garna, Zirkzee, Hojlund, Mainoo, Dalot would probably be rotational players and subs but that is where we are at, and some of our players wouldn't be making the bench
Add to the mix that we barely have 11 players to make a 1st team, who is on the bench? either Hojlund or Zirkzee, Garna, Eriksen, Collyer (don't get me wrong I like Collyer), Malacia....feck me the squad is trash, no two ways about it
I am not sure how else to judge it this squad is just poor, we are in the bottom half not by accident, we are getting outplayed by better players, better squads, it is no coincidence that we are supposedly looking at players from the bottom half like Cunha and Ait-Nouri because they are better than what we have
We either need to get a couple of players in or promote youth, unfortunately our best youth players are in the U18 not the U21
Maybe I can blame Amorim for not looking at this shower of shit before coming in and saying no way but I guess that would be harsh
If I think about it player by player 1-11 how many of our current squad would start for a top half Premier League club?
Amad
Bruno
Ugarte
errrm? maybe Delight, Maz as CB?
Ok so no doubt Garna, Zirkzee, Hojlund, Mainoo, Dalot would probably be rotational players and subs but that is where we are at, and some of our players wouldn't be making the bench
Add to the mix that we barely have 11 players to make a 1st team, who is on the bench? either Hojlund or Zirkzee, Garna, Eriksen, Collyer (don't get me wrong I like Collyer), Malacia....feck me the squad is trash, no two ways about it
I am not sure how else to judge it this squad is just poor, we are in the bottom half not by accident, we are getting outplayed by better players, better squads, it is no coincidence that we are supposedly looking at players from the bottom half like Cunha and Ait-Nouri because they are better than what we have
We either need to get a couple of players in or promote youth, unfortunately our best youth players are in the U18 not the U21
Maybe I can blame Amorim for not looking at this shower of shit before coming in and saying no way but I guess that would be harsh
They’ll look like even bigger fools than they already do. Hire a manager then not back him when it’s obvious he comes with a certain style and system is fecking retarded
Best thing he did was go on record saying he wanted to start next summer he knew exactly what sort of shit was coming his way
Maz at rwb doesn't work at all. He has gone from one of our best players to worst.
We definitely should not spend 300 m for any transfers. It’s the same drill we did for manager after manager and failed miserably.
This squad is probably not good enough to win a league but to stay in top 10, I firmly believe any decent manager would be able to achieve that. If he doesn’t there is no right to demand transfers.
Same thing with Ole , Eth and now Amorim. First let them show signs they are decent then they deserve to be backed.
This is all true and it brings back into question all the nonsense we heard about 'Game Model' this time last year. Like a bunch of street preachers, the Manchester press pack told us INEOS would implement a game model and recruit against it. It came to the point that Ten Hag was being relentlessly asked about it by the 'said journos in his press conferences.
Where's that game model now? You have a squad built for one thing, then rather than try to slowly evolve it into something else (after sticking with the coach and buying a bunch of players that continue to take you in that direction), you blow it all up and go for revolution but without showing the willingness to spend to make it a reality.
Where we are today is entirely on the management of the club. We're sinking like a stone and it reflects very badly on the people who run this club. I can see a world in which Sir Jim gives up the ghost and realises, without blowing through a whole heap of cash, he cannot make Amorim work. There would be little surprising about Amorim being gone by summer. However, if he does go those who were involved in the decision to bring him in need to account for themselves too.
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INEOS have fecked the season, if people are looking to blame someone look no further...
I will never come to terms with the love affair some still seemingly have with Ten Hag.
Begs a question what was the meticulously prepared plan from the best in class in charge? Like a regular fan could see this coming, what’s the point of forcing Amorim to come in November
He will not be sacked.
This is the thing. Even I in a 3rd world country know how United will play, how the substitute will be made and how United will approach the game.
We've turned in to a very predictable team.
And we’ve played arsenal and Liverpool in that time also, our form would have been worse if Ten Hag was still around.
I genuinely have no idea what you watched from the games. Yoro was excellent this game. We did well considering the tactical setup of the game today from both sides. There are a lot of positives today from the team especially when being compared to under ETH.We are not making great progress
Forget Ten Hag for a second (even though we never hit a low in form with him quite like we are in now) - we should be doing a lot better than we are in these games.
Today we were lethargic, slow, scared to play, passive. It was the same in all the other games bar Liverpool and Arsenal. Mainoo and Garnacho also look like worse players now. Yorro looks shit. There's not a lot of positives at all. The only positive is that it should get better but that doesn't excuse his form right now.
Crazy how we just keep repeating the same cycle. INEOS making the exact same mistakes the Glazers did for years.
I think Amorim is a good manager and he'd probably look 10x better for a club like Brighton, but going for him when we are so skint was a huge misstep. INEOS clearly underestimated how unsuited the squad was to his system. Liverpool went for Slot over him in the Summer because they didn't think their squad suited the system.
I have to say that I'm massively disappointed with his performance so far. Aside from changing formations, nothing has improved from the Ten Hag days. He may claim we need time to adjust, but I don't even see a shadow of this formation working, especially in attack. If anything, it's made us weaker because it suits so few of our players.
Personally, I've always preferred pragmatic managers who do whatever it takes to win and improve the team. I mean, that's their job, isn't it? Managing players to get the best out of them. Formations are supposed to bring out the best in players, so persisting with formations and lineups that are clearly not working is nonsense and shows a lack of tactical flexibility. I still give him the benefit of the doubt, but now I'm not that convinced that even with new signings, he could do significantly better.
He needs to take a hard look at himself and the players he has at his disposal and go back to the drawing board. Players like Eriksen, Casemiro and, dare I say it, Rashford surely have a part to play in the remainder of the season because they are talented while we're dreadful right now. I mean how is Antony getting off the bench before them.
Personally, I've always preferred pragmatic managers who do whatever it takes to win and improve the team. I mean, that's their job, isn't it? Managing players to get the best out of them. Formations are supposed to bring out the best in players, so persisting with formations and lineups that are clearly not working is nonsense and shows a lack of tactical flexibility. I still give him the benefit of the doubt, but now I'm not that convinced that even with new signings, he could do significantly better.
He needs to take a hard look at himself and the players he has at his disposal and go back to the drawing board. Players like Eriksen, Casemiro and, dare I say it, Rashford surely have a part to play in the remainder of the season because they are talented while we're dreadful right now. I mean how is Antony getting off the bench before them
.Yep. We don't want to spend a shit load of money for weird formation if he can't show signs that its the right way to go.
As funny as the fraud masquerading as a football manager without as much of a plan a. Nice coat though.Thanks for making me laugh
In pretty much every metric they were the better side and were unlucky not to score on a couple of occasions. Even so, Dalot or Bruno looked like red cards waiting to happen and Arsenal were the better side for large periods.
It’s really incredible isn’t it? The system is very different than previous, already seen proof of it’s merit in big games (not smash and grab, but actually playing). Have people never learnt a new way or skill that is fairly complex? The saying practice makes perfect is apt. The learning curve for most things isn’t linear.Or what we sack him?
The expactations he has set, and examples so far, outside of the pitch, are equally important or even more so imo.
not the first manager to say things similar to this
I think that's destroyed if he has spent 7 months getting pumped every weekend before that though. We've seen what happens with a lot of these players, the tools get downed and you don't tend to come back from that, pre-season or no pre-season. Ironically Amorim was completely correct but he has had his hand pulled and what he has probably feared, that mid-season with little prep time and a vastly different system it wouldn't be smooth will be fatal sadly IMO.
Opposition managers knowing how a team will play is a very redundant statement isn’t it? We’ve all got eyes, we all see the style of play a team uses. It doesn’t drastically change game to game.
This season was lost the moment the board decided to keep Ten Hag. When appointing Amorim, they must have known he would stick to his system, as he has always been clear that he won't change his approach.
Surely, both the board and Amorim must have believed it would be better than this, but by now, they should have accepted the reality: the squad lacks quality across all areas, and the results reflect that.
Amorim's system requires players with specific skills to function properly—we all know this. The fullback department is especially critical, yet we don’t have the players suited for the role. But regardless of the system we play, it won't fix the fundamental lack of quality in the squad. We don’t have a proper striker, our goalkeeper is prone to ridiculous errors, the core of our center-backs is slow, and there’s no energy in midfield apart from Ugarte, who’s clearly fatigued in recent games. Bruno is inconsistent, while Amad is the only player consistently delivering decent performances week after week.
Realistically, if we decided to switch systems, the only feasible option would be reverting to counter-attacking football—the most basic approach. We couldn’t effectively implement any other sophisticated system. Even if we solve our defensive issues by playing a low block, the same problems would persist in midfield and attack. The lack of quality is undeniable. We might pick up a few more wins here and there, but would it really matter if we finished 9th or 15th? What about next season? Would we begin building a proper system after new players arrive, or would we stick with the counter-attacking approach that leads nowhere? It would be far better to use these remaining months to start laying the groundwork for the future.
I support Amorim’s decision to persist with his system, no matter how painful it gets—unless relegation becomes a serious risk, of course. I trust him because he’s upfront about the situation and doesn’t sugarcoat it. That gives me confidence that he’ll take the necessary steps to turn this around. But I know it won’t be quick or easy. Recruitment will be critical; we simply cannot afford more mistakes. Financially, the club is already strangled by poor decisions made in the past, both in terms of transfers and wage structures. Moving forward, we must be perfect in the transfer market.
Surely, both the board and Amorim must have believed it would be better than this, but by now, they should have accepted the reality: the squad lacks quality across all areas, and the results reflect that.
Amorim's system requires players with specific skills to function properly—we all know this. The fullback department is especially critical, yet we don’t have the players suited for the role. But regardless of the system we play, it won't fix the fundamental lack of quality in the squad. We don’t have a proper striker, our goalkeeper is prone to ridiculous errors, the core of our center-backs is slow, and there’s no energy in midfield apart from Ugarte, who’s clearly fatigued in recent games. Bruno is inconsistent, while Amad is the only player consistently delivering decent performances week after week.
Realistically, if we decided to switch systems, the only feasible option would be reverting to counter-attacking football—the most basic approach. We couldn’t effectively implement any other sophisticated system. Even if we solve our defensive issues by playing a low block, the same problems would persist in midfield and attack. The lack of quality is undeniable. We might pick up a few more wins here and there, but would it really matter if we finished 9th or 15th? What about next season? Would we begin building a proper system after new players arrive, or would we stick with the counter-attacking approach that leads nowhere? It would be far better to use these remaining months to start laying the groundwork for the future.
I support Amorim’s decision to persist with his system, no matter how painful it gets—unless relegation becomes a serious risk, of course. I trust him because he’s upfront about the situation and doesn’t sugarcoat it. That gives me confidence that he’ll take the necessary steps to turn this around. But I know it won’t be quick or easy. Recruitment will be critical; we simply cannot afford more mistakes. Financially, the club is already strangled by poor decisions made in the past, both in terms of transfers and wage structures. Moving forward, we must be perfect in the transfer market.
Everyone seemed to agree we needed a full scale change of culture at our club.
Yet now it appears that they don’t have the stomach for it and want to revert back to playing the systems we have tried in previous years with previous managers. None of which worked.
All the people saying we should go back to being a counter-attacking team like we were under Ole and Ruud and also ETH would no doubt be the same ones moaning that we can’t control possession against teams.
For those saying we should get rid of Amorim - who would you have instead? And what manager would ever take this job, given that if sacked, Amorim would have been given zero opportunity to implement his ideas (in that he would have had no transfer season or preseason)?
Our mistake this season was sticking with ETH after the FA Cup final - despite him having had 3 years and us showing zero improvement or any discernible style of play.
Amorim has a system but it is one that players are learning, and also one that we don’t currently have all the right players for. Had he come in over the summer, the he would have been able to address those more than he is able to mid-season. That is on the owners.
He is the right man for the job and he himself said it will get worse before it gets better. Also exactly what happened at Sporting too.
Had this forum been around during SAFs early years, I dread to think how many idiots would have been asking for his sacking then too.
Yet now it appears that they don’t have the stomach for it and want to revert back to playing the systems we have tried in previous years with previous managers. None of which worked.
All the people saying we should go back to being a counter-attacking team like we were under Ole and Ruud and also ETH would no doubt be the same ones moaning that we can’t control possession against teams.
For those saying we should get rid of Amorim - who would you have instead? And what manager would ever take this job, given that if sacked, Amorim would have been given zero opportunity to implement his ideas (in that he would have had no transfer season or preseason)?
Our mistake this season was sticking with ETH after the FA Cup final - despite him having had 3 years and us showing zero improvement or any discernible style of play.
Amorim has a system but it is one that players are learning, and also one that we don’t currently have all the right players for. Had he come in over the summer, the he would have been able to address those more than he is able to mid-season. That is on the owners.
He is the right man for the job and he himself said it will get worse before it gets better. Also exactly what happened at Sporting too.
Had this forum been around during SAFs early years, I dread to think how many idiots would have been asking for his sacking then too.
You can't put all the blame on the players. This squad is more than good enough than to have zero shots on goal at home against a mid table team. Amorim is also at fault here.
This is such a nonsense. Every club in the world plays a consistent formation. It's farcical that we're apparently so predictable playing 3-4-2-1 yet playing 4-2-3-1 every week becomes so mysterious to the opposition.
I think you mean 4 points of 18 right? I don't think we are worse under Amorim that ETH. Both periods have been awful, primarily due to the quality of the players, which is something ETH needs to take substantial portion of the blame for.
As for the in-game management, it was something ETH was particularly awful at. Always too late to spot a problem and change it. Maybe Amorim didn't get it spot on today, but he's been pretty good with it other games - early and decisive.
If I was to criticize Amorim for something, it would be continuing to play Mazraoui and Dalot at wingbacks in games like this. It ain't working and there are other options.
If this continues then of course he will.
They hesitated on the ETH sacking, do you really think they’ll make the same mistake twice?
Without £200+ million of players being bought this month this system is unplayable for this squad this season.
If he can’t adapt he’ll be gone by Easter.