Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach | Thread locked during matches

I wonder if he’s regretting coming here. He could be in sunny portugal, dominating, living high life in a beautiful villa. He looked so stressed today, it’s like watching a different person.
 
I think I've seen Garnacho cross more in 2025 then his entire time here. Ruben should get credit for that.
 
He's actually kind of reminding me of Jose lately. The life sucked out of him version of Mourinho, where he's just calculating everything in his head and the world is on his shoulders. Really hope he starts winning games with performances to bring that charm back. He's got to find a way to get results and better performances until the summer. Cause it's fairly dire.
 
I like to call things as I see them. This guy has been very poor so far in my eyes. Has us set up terribly every game, half of our players in sub-optimised positions and no semblance of a unit. I understand the working theory of him getting his methods across, so of course - we have to wait and see in the long run and I am happy to do that. But blind denial serves nobody, we look terrible, and looked far better this season even before he was appointed in my eyes. He completely neuters us every game by basically playing Dalot at left wing, and we excused him for not having a natural fit - yet he signs one and immediately proceeds to make things difficult for himself by playing him on the right.

I appreciate that he is a coach and I am not, but that is a lot more relevant when his different ideas to mine are vindicated by appearing to make sense on the pitch, which they don’t. Feck knows what he’s trying to achieve with Dalot in this position, but it’s never worked once, except maybe against an awful Trent Alexander-Arnold. Now it’s compounded with Mainoo upfront, Bruno in central midfield.

He needs to realise that it’s 2025, not 2026. He is not managing in next season yet, he’s managing next weekend. I worry that we may do irreparable damage by the time we make it to this panacea of the summer window. The squad and mood at the club may be completely broken with shattered confidence if they simply lose games most weeks for months.

I will close by saying that of course, this could suddenly improve dramatically (we probably can’t get much worse tbh), by we’re absolutely taking a number of steps backwards in the hope of going forward. And we weren’t even very high to begin with. We’ve had some decent performances in tough away games which even terrible teams have been able to do for years and years in football when you stay organised and contain a better opponent. If this level of performance continues to the end of the season I will be very worried. What I would have hoped to see when Amorim came in was some cohesion that clearly highlights a lack of players, which can then be addressed in the summer. That’s what I want in the next few months, irrespective of the results. I don’t care about those right now.
 
I have a bad feeling we are repeating the same mistakes we made with Ten Hag despite the club doing we can't afford to do this.

I think it's pretty obvious we are going to buy Gyokeres in the summer for example. We will pay his clause of 63 million. My question is who else would be looking to pay that?

I don't think there would be anyone. I have a feeling we are just going down the path of buying players the manager has used before for large sums of money players no other club would pay that amount for.
 
I can't lie, what he's been delivering on the pitch has been disappointing so far. I like how he carries himself and how he speaks, but we need to start seeing more from him at some point before the end of the season to give us confidence.
 
Cassidy said:
He basically played quite a few positions on both left and right. Which is why Amorim was taking the piss with his answer. He referenced wyscout because he is saying reporters should bother to complete basic research before asking stupid questions.

https://www.whoscored.com/players/495260/show/patrick-dorgu
Click to expand...
Dorgu's natural position is in the left. Dalot's natural position is in the right. Dalot is half decent on the right but terrible on the left. He's not going to cut in and cause havoc in the center (has that ever happened?) and neither can he make overlapping runs and cross with his left. In an already boring 3-4-3 formation, wing backs making overlapping runs, getting into space and providing supply inside the box is critical. Instead this role has been taken up by our forwards (Garnacho and Amad) who should the receivers of this supply and are a better goal scoring threat. Hojlund's isolated in this with central midfielders often arriving too late and not at all. You can see how many of Garnacho's good crosses went to the drain because there wasn't a body in the place he crossed. We improved yesterday in the 2nd after after Dorgu came off because Amad is far more comfortable going in/out as compared to Dorgu/Dalot but that's not his natural position again.

Frankly, all this hype on 3-4-3 is reminiscent of Rangnick's magical 4-2-2-2 formation. We seem to be doing a lot with the press (conferences) and little with actual pressing. All gas and no result so far. I just hope we're not paying top dollars for an intern to learn on the job.
 
Last edited:
ShinjiNinja26 said:
Fergie would struggle to get a tune out of these wasters.
Click to expand...
Disagree with that. Fergie would keep things so simple and straightforward and he would put the fear of God into these players. Anyone who steps out of line would be immediately ostracised.

Football is not a complicated game at all. Its all these big brain Pep wannabes who unnecessarily complicate things and end up looking stupid. Little surprise that the manager who got us playing the best was also the one who kept it the simplest.
 
I honestly don’t think any other manager could have come in and done worse.
Hopefully it’s part of some grand plan for next season but I don’t see how a couple of signings suddenly make his football look a great fit for the PL.

I like his personality a lot though, and his tactics seem a great fit for the big games so I live in hope.
 
JE-365 said:
Why didn’t he try Antony as RWB if he considers wingback as winger then?
Click to expand...
Because he’s an absolutely terrible football player? I haven’t been impressed with Amorim at all, but paying Antony to go play in a different country is one he got right.
 
rajds89 said:
Yup, let's sack him without really having a chance to put his stamp on this club. Who do you bring in after him?
Click to expand...
Not saying we should sack him but that's happened at other clubs to the benefit of those clubs. Not every manager gets to put their stamp on a club
 
Did people who knew him from Portugal know he was such a negative Nelly? Really did not expect him to be our most defensive-mlnded manager ever.
 
It looks like he’ll continue being a massive disappoitment. He gets a free pass by many due to his looks, charisma and record in Portugal but had it been a southgate he wouldve been heavily criticized.

ForeverRed1 said:
I wonder if he’s regretting coming here. He could be in sunny portugal, dominating, living high life in a beautiful villa. He looked so stressed today, it’s like watching a different person.
Click to expand...
I’m sure we probably regret getting him too. Oh what I would do to have a class manager but I think we’re stuck with this guy for a time being unfortunately.
 
What's irritating is that every 2nd half after trailing behind we make better tactics to try claw back some sort of result.

If he knows how to do it in the 2nd half why doesn't he start with those tactics?
 
Ace said:
Because he’s an absolutely terrible football player? I haven’t been impressed with Amorim at all, but paying Antony to go play in a different country is one he got right.
Click to expand...
He gave Malacia ‘’a terrible one’’ a chance to play wingback in PL but not Antony.
 
hellhunter said:
I mean yeah it is, but I'm happy he's not throwing him under the bus in public. Amorim does well to be a bit less open with the media
Click to expand...
Yeah obviously Hojlund'a confidence is rock bottom and needs an arm around his shoulder. Amorim is right to protect him.
 
Berbaclass said:
See this is just delusion to be honest. We can all see he isn't up to it.
Click to expand...

Everybody replying, trying to explain that Amorim can't publicly call Hojlund shit.

But didn't the manager do exactly that, very loud and very clearly, when he played Mainoo as a striker instead of Rasmus, against Palace!?

Now that was being brutally honest!
 
UnitedSofa said:
I’m sure the shackles are off but the team is just too piss scared to go forward
Click to expand...

He’s been playing with five defenders + a defensive midfielder. I’d hardly call that taking the shackles off. It doesn’t really take a genius to work out why we’re not creating anything.

The whole balance of the team is just completely wrong. It’s so defensively heavy. On the odd occasions we do attack there’s just not enough players in the oppositions half. We’re constantly handicapped.

What started off as a 343 has very quickly evolved into a genuine 523 and it’s just awful. The complete opposite of what a Manchester United team should be. And to make things worse we’re not even getting the added benefit of five defenders making us defensively stronger, as we can barely buy ourselves a clean sheet at the moment.

I like the guy, but if this is his vision of football then I don’t think he’ll ever be the right fit for this club.
 
Rozay said:
I like to call things as I see them. This guy has been very poor so far in my eyes. Has us set up terribly every game, half of our players in sub-optimised positions and no semblance of a unit. I understand the working theory of him getting his methods across, so of course - we have to wait and see in the long run and I am happy to do that. But blind denial serves nobody, we look terrible, and looked far better this season even before he was appointed in my eyes. He completely neuters us every game by basically playing Dalot at left wing, and we excused him for not having a natural fit - yet he signs one and immediately proceeds to make things difficult for himself by playing him on the right.

I appreciate that he is a coach and I am not, but that is a lot more relevant when his different ideas to mine are vindicated by appearing to make sense on the pitch, which they don’t. Feck knows what he’s trying to achieve with Dalot in this position, but it’s never worked once, except maybe against an awful Trent Alexander-Arnold. Now it’s compounded with Mainoo upfront, Bruno in central midfield.

He needs to realise that it’s 2025, not 2026. He is not managing in next season yet, he’s managing next weekend. I worry that we may do irreparable damage by the time we make it to this panacea of the summer window. The squad and mood at the club may be completely broken with shattered confidence if they simply lose games most weeks for months.

I will close by saying that of course, this could suddenly improve dramatically (we probably can’t get much worse tbh), by we’re absolutely taking a number of steps backwards in the hope of going forward. And we weren’t even very high to begin with. We’ve had some decent performances in tough away games which even terrible teams have been able to do for years and years in football when you stay organised and contain a better opponent. If this level of performance continues to the end of the season I will be very worried. What I would have hoped to see when Amorim came in was some cohesion that clearly highlights a lack of players, which can then be addressed in the summer. That’s what I want in the next few months, irrespective of the results. I don’t care about those right now.
Click to expand...

Furthermore, I dont even like what I think he is trying to create; a really possession heavy style where the CBs dominate on the ball.

I would really prefer the style of someone like Iraola.
 
It's true that Dorgu can play on the right side. He's a multi-positional player.

In fact, he has played the majority of his games this season as a right winger for Lecce.
 
Rusholme Ruffian said:
A few people in here a bit gutted that an offside goal has prevented them from going full mental I reckon.

Some shitty performances, but results so far in 2025: DWWLWWWLW - imagine when it all starts to click?!
Click to expand...

Think many people said this season was a write off and they wanted to see performances rather than results.

So far the jury is still out for me. We have been outplayed by every single team that’s come to Old Trafford including 2 in the relegation zone.

There are too many players out of position which results in no balance in the squad. Just put players in their natural position. Can’t we just have a left footed wing back on the left and a right footed wing back on the right? This allows for first time crossing and quick balls into the box. It’s so obvious yet I’m stunned a man paid millions can’t see it.
 
Okay, so for the first time he now has a week between matches to coach and prepare. To be fair, he's basically had a game every 3/4 days since joining, and with recovery and travel days, I can realistically see that there's limited coaching time. So I'm giving him a pass. But, the main q's I think we have to get answered, on the pitch, are:

- What is the build up plan through the middle? The only time we look dangerous is when someone pings a 60 yard ball to the opposite wing, or Amad solos his way down the right.
- Why, with 7 'defensive' positions and a keeper, are we still conceding so many goals? For me, it's because of the first point - we're playing way too much in our own half and making mistakes.
- What's going on with the third CB being an important 'midfielder'? I thought that was the whole idea - a CB steps up allowing (presumably Bruno) to get forward into the box. It's not happening, Maquire or De Ligt is always 10/15 yards behind the line.
- Speaking of the captain, he's going to play every minute and doesn't suit this system at all. When he's in CMF we're too open and he's too far from attacking actions, and when he's forward his lack of physicality means we can't do anything down that side.
- Can he solve the drop off from Hojlund? If playing him into form isn't working, is there a plan B?
- Does he not realise the importance of energy at home? I hate to say it, but watching the match at Anfield the night before and then OT last night was like listening to tunes from a club's sound system versus your phone. And it reflects the energy the players are giving.
 
JE-365 said:
Why didn’t he try Antony as RWB if he considers wingback as winger then?
Click to expand...
I would imagine because he saw Antony play football. He’s weak in the tackle, prone to lapses in concentration, and fundamentally a relatively poor football player in the position he’s been playing his whole career.

Asking him to do something completely new (after he’d kicked off about doing it under Ten Hag for 15 minutes) probably felt like the shit idea it is.
 
I've maintained he should be fully judged next season. However there isn't anything positive to say about the football since he took over. There isn't really any defense for him and we're left with blind faith again.

There needs to be significant improvement immediately into the start of next season. Based on what I'm seeing so far I'm doubtful that'll be the case. But there's nothing to gain by sacking him now, so we may as well wait and see.
 
andersj said:
Furthermore, I dont even like what I think he is trying to create; a really possession heavy style where the CBs dominate on the ball.

I would really prefer the style of someone like Iraola.
Click to expand...
Every time someone mentions Iraola in this thread, you have to drink.

You’re halfway to dead by this point.
 
People are just being willfully ignorant in here. Its not about if a player can play multiple positions. Its about playing a player where he is most comfortable. Just because a player can play multiple positions doesn't mean they should. Can Dalot play LWB and Dorgu RWB, sure they can in a pinch but is that where they are most comfortable? Of course not. He's setting the team up as if there is no other option but to play everyone out of position and he wonders why we look the worst we have ever looked. Its complete foolishness.
 
A lot to sort out

Slow passing out of the back

Players unwilling to take the ball on the haft turn or turn with the ball

Attackers hitting the first man, unless they pass back to midfield

Generally not enough support to the attack

Defence dropping too deep

The press. My god the press is awful

Good to get a result but the football was not at the standard and to be fair, everyone knows that
 
So much for preaching patience when he came. The idea that we’re are this bad because we are using a back three is rubbish. When you watch the games, a lot of times are aren’t in a back three formation.
What’s more, a lot of teams in recent seasons have adopted similar in-game formations and not looked like a relegation side.
The last coach(who I wanted us to keep) had us in a similar position as well. This is about the squad we have built.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.