This is the reality of how poor we have become.
Any pretence that we will get back to be a top team in England or Europe in the short term is wishful thinking. I think we are just about at rock bottom.
Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach
- Thread starter sewey89
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This is the reality of how poor we have become.
Any pretence that we will get back to be a top team in England or Europe in the short term is wishful thinking. I think we are just about at rock bottom.
Generally speaking this approach isn't followed at the highest level not even the most dogmatic and successful managers follow it. There isn't a system out there that is so transcendental that it is better than adapting to your most promising players. Now I won't make definitive claims but the question that we need to answer is whether this system makes the best long term use of the likes of Garnacho, Mainoo, Amad, Yoro, De Ligt or Ugarte? And if a number of these players are to be jettisoned, is the system actually worth it?
At minimum how many does he need? and how many have shown they're capable of playing his system? De ligt, Amad, Bruno and Martinez maybe but he's hardly reliable. After that it's slim pickings.
For a short while, Grafite was a wonderful player.
We are and we have a lot of work to do obviously but there is also a glaring step to take that will instantly make up a lot of ground.
A decently reliable keeper and a couple of forwards who can put the ball in the net with some sort of regularity and we suddenly look a lot closer.
These don't even have to be world class players. Just senior experience forwards with a track record of goals.
I agree. I think he's being too inflexible, and wasn't the new methodology that the club would decide our style and formation and pick the appropriate manager. If they have picked 3 defenders and wing backs as our only way of playing football from now on; which other manger only plays this formation ? Don't most managers chop and change a bit depending on the match and the opposition?
I feel for him because our recruitment has been utterly terrible - but the nonsense yesterday of trying to play out from the back with players who just didn't have the ability to do it against Newcastle was ridiculous. Anyone could see the disaster coming.
I feel that he's not helping himeself.
That team shits on ours, it's not even close. Evra, Carrick, Scholes, Nani, Park, just one of those is worth the entirety of our team.We deserve to be 15th look at our squad, poor Amorim, cant expect him to play well against the barcodes
Sir Alex Ferguson went away to Germany to face a title-winning Wolfsburg side with this squad formation
He started with only ONE defender, eight midfielders and a striker way past his prime...he won 3-1.
And what does that look like in practice?
I don’t know man, even if we were to concede that Bruno is more important individually - Nani won 4 league titles, a CL, and miscellaneous domestic cups - and he wasn’t a passenger, by the way.
I don’t even think Bruno would say he’s contributed more to the club than Nani
But who are these 3421 specific players who can only play that formation?
Given it is apparently very rare amd doesn't work(or so is the argument) how can there be so many players out there who can only fit that system?
It's an interesting conversation. The way I would frame it is that in isolation Bruno has been a more important player for United during his time at the club but Nani had to reach a higher standard to start for United during his time while not being the most important player. It's similar to De Gea vs Van Der Sar, De Gea has had more seasons where he was our best player but it doesn't make him better than VDS.
I think he was very clear when he first came that he would use the rest of the season to drill the new system into the players and get them familiar. Effectively, barring a miracle, writing off the rest of the season. I can see some disagreeing with that approach, but he was clear that’s what he was going to do. So I don’t think we should be surprised. The inflexibility is by design and really short term pain for long term gain. Personally I was prepared for it, and generally - yesterday’s debacle aside - have had a good feeling of late that he is really building something. I’m not going to have a wobbly about one result. I’ll start judging the guy next season, when he’s had this six month freebie, a summer of recruitment, and a full pre-season.
We’ve done the managerial merry-go-round far too many times, with competing successive philosophies that have each undercut the previous regime. It’s time to build something sustainable and lasting, but I can see that’s going to involve considerable sacrifice and pain in the short term. We have been an almost, nothing type of team for so long, I’m ready to swallow whatever medicine is needed to take this in a different direction in the medium to long term. I think we’d be well advised to stick with it and reserve judgement for a good while yet. Even the very best managers have come into English football, with very clear ideas of how they want their team to play, and had significant teething problems early on. And those were with much better squads than the one we have available to us. But by sticking with those visions, and recruiting according to the vision, they were able to build something great.
Our starting point is lower than either Liverpool and City, under Klopp and Pep respectively, were at the start of their process. But the principles remain the same. The alternative here is to be more flexible and make the most of what you have now, to get the best results you can, and then next season start from scratch on his vision once you have a squad better tooled to his approach. But that just sets the whole project back. You are still going to be shipping off the same players as we plan to this summer and you’ve opened the door to tactical flexibility from the beginning which, psychologically, removes the do or die mentality of the importance of the approach in many players minds. Yes, it’s really shit watching us this year. Yes it should never be the case that this club actively writes off a year; but he’s coming into a situation more than a decade in the making. This was never going to be an easy or quick fix, and expecting him to compromise on his vision just a few months into the job is entirely missing the point of what his job actually is at this stage. And if we lose sight of that, then this endless merry-go-round of mediocrity will go on interminably.
Rock bottom will hit about September when we sleep walk into another season with Amorim in charge and we will be sat in the relegation zone.
Does any other fan base in any sports has such a strong cult of the manager syndrome like we do at UTD?
I think what it is is a lot of fans understand that the manager is not the main issue at the club. Even the likes of ETH, Ole, Jose etc for all their flaws definitely were not issue #1, there's many deep rooted issues at the club that have festered over the years. The club is a sick old man right now.
What does 'cult of the manager' mean here ?
They were two different players, but yes for all my criticisms of Bruno i agree with you that he's a better player.
No. It’s fecking weird,
I remember when United went down in the 70s.
Tommy Docherty then built an amazing side. Attendances went through the roof. United in Div2 was like fireshitstorm.
I believe that's in on that back of that 70's story that United built such an amazing momentum.
I can't see United every doing that again.
No balls to take a chance on a British (Scottish?) maverick.
feck me Alex. You handled that change so badly.
Tommy Docherty then built an amazing side. Attendances went through the roof. United in Div2 was like fireshitstorm.
I believe that's in on that back of that 70's story that United built such an amazing momentum.
I can't see United every doing that again.
No balls to take a chance on a British (Scottish?) maverick.
feck me Alex. You handled that change so badly.
Don't think so. Fans will continually back a manager because of SAF.
I don't have a strong view on Amorim but what is for sure is that he's done a woeful job in the league and his formation doesn't suit the players. We essentially play with 7 defensive players and still get battered
You will recruit wingbacks and No 10s who are not great fit for a 4231. CBs, CMs, strikers are less affected.
Few teams play wingbacks hence there are very few of them. It is plain statistics that the 4231 player pool is the biggest. Of course we then go down the 3421 path for which I have never heard a solid explanation other than it worked for Amorim at Sporting and that we have to do this because ETH couldn't get 4231 to work. Bad bad risk reward.
Well according to Jamie Carragher, Liverpool fans are unique in the way they see the manager of their club.
Before we get into this, please can I ask if you've watched them much this season? Because I have and it will be interesting to hear the argument for their 'athletic midfield' when I think of the profiles of their central players bae one.
They also do not have better attacking players than us, they have a coach who plays to the strengths of what he has i.e. look at Mateta pre Glasner (2 PL goals the season before, 5 the season before that). Olise was class but he's gone, the rest are good solid PL players but, for example, Palace got zero interest (to the point Parish mentioned it) with Eze. Same for someone like Nuno, pre his arrival at Wolves you’d have been laughed at for saying Hudson odoi, Elanga and Wood would be amongst the best attacking trio in the league.
Less points than Hodgson at his season at Liverpool
100%
The prevalent belief among a part of the fan base that every manager deserves a few years time, few hundred millions to fill out the squad with "his" players and blind faith without showing any signs that he's actually capable of at least marginally improving the squad he's working with.
Giving support to a manager who hasn't even had a full year with the team doesn't = "cult". Real question is, does any other fanbase use the word "cult" constantly for everything?
Honestly he's done nothing to show that he's deserving to be given any funds and prolonged time at the club. Heck if go by Dorgu, he definitely shouldn't be getting any funds to sign players for his formation.
Must disagree i feel that "cult" is exactly the appropriate term because the people that are advocating for him to be given money and time are basing that on pure faith that he will turn things around.
Everything is about faith, nothing is guaranteed, both players and managers, you never know how will they adapt.
I got to go with the tangibles on this one mate. No signs of progress or improvement shown, means not good enough.
Except there are clear signs of progress and patterns but ok. Continue with your 'cult' narrative.
No, it's bloody bonkers. It's like they forget about previous results, pretend that performances are improving, throw plenty of money at a manager and expecting to go well despite zero evidence that he can improve anything. They also bang on about tactics despite the tactics being absolutely horrendous.
Yep. Palace have a better first XI than us. Henderson, Guehi, Mitchell, Munoz, Wharton, Eze and Mateta would all start in a combined XI.
We finished a hugely fortunate 8th last season and have sold or loaned some of our biggest goal threats without replacing them.
The result was inevitable it's odd that people can't get their head round it and think it's down to the replacement manager.
That's obviously a very selective way of looking at things. A more comprehensive, longer term way would be to also consider that fan opinions can be informed by the clubs long term interests and the unique specifics related to Amorim getting the job - most notably that he was brought into one of the most intense club football jobs in the world in the middle of a league season, without the benefit of a full summer to train with his players, without the benefit of a summer window to buy a few new ones, with several notable injuries to contend with, and with the knowledge by United hierarchy that hiring him would be inclusive of him implementing the same formation and tactics he used to dominate the Portuguese league. Therefore, to take all of the factors into consideration wouldn't be cultish at all - in fact the opposite; it would be taking a holistic, long term view to the club's future success.
Most of our fans can recognise that our problems transcend the manager
Nope, not really. Nothing that hasn't been seen with ETH previously.
Very good post.
Right? Imagine Real Madrid finishing 15th with the lowest points tally in their history playing defensive boring football, would their fans be asking to give the manager another season and two transfer windows? There would be riots
Imagine Madrid with Hojlund as their main source of goals.