Both are problems. As big clubs go, Hojlund has been objective terrible this year. United are also at fault (and this extends back to Arnold and ETH's time) for not having bought strikers who actually score goals. ETH's idea of adequate strikers was apparently Weghorst, Hojlund, an Zirkzee, and so here we are. Its Amorim's number one job to fix that this summer.
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.
Both are problems. As big clubs go, Hojlund has been objective terrible this year. United are also at fault (and this extends back to Arnold and ETH's time) for not having bought strikers who actually score goals. ETH's idea of adequate strikers was apparently Weghorst, Hojlund, an Zirkzee, and so here we are. Its Amorim's number one job to fix that this summer.
Or it won't... Your optimism is commendable but our ability to solve long term problems is not confidence inspiring. Top class strikers are hard to come by and we aren't the only ones looking not are we particularly in a position of strength.
It hasn't really been a long term problem - just one that was created during Ten Hag's time, which Amorim, because he was dropped into this mess mid-season, has been forced to live with. He will be greatly incentivized to fix it because not doing so will be the primary driver of his own demise.
It's honestly bewildering that a club of our stature spending the amount of money we have in the last decade came down to those three names. What the hell was ETH thinking. Bizarre.
Again you're peddling the idea that ETH really wanted any of those as his first choice strikers when the truth is they were either stop gap warm body only options (Weghorst), A young inexperienced striker that is completely outside the profile of an experienced striker that he actually wanted (Hojlund) or a player that he didn't really want at all who isn't even a striker Zirkzee.
You what now? What striker did we have before Ten Hag that would magically make Amorim's system click?
It gets even more depressing when you throw in Antony and Mount costing a collective £140m
Stop gap or not - the likes of Weghorst, Armrabat, and Sabitzer wouldn't have come to United without ETH's approval. He also didn't have to go after Hojlund or Zirkzee. Specific choices lead to specific results.
Aging versions of Cavani or CR7 would've been infinitely better than Hojlund this year. The first had 17 goals in his first year and CR7 had 24.
Well I think something has to change. You can't keep everything the same and expect much better results. It's either buying in better or hoping Garnacho, Rasmus etc level up next season like young players can.
A manager can’t tactic his way out of this.
So you're saying we should have kept Cavani and Ronaldo. Ok then good talk.
Can you point me to where this was said ?
The overarching point is we have consistently bought ineffective strikers during Ten Hag's time.
You said solving our striker position hasn't been a long term problem. I strongly beg to differ. At most Cavani and Ronaldo kicked the problem down the road a little.
It hasn't been a long term problem given that post Fergie - we've had players like RvP, Rooney, Falcao, Zlatan, Cavani, and Cristiano Ronaldo on the books. All in their latter phases and yet infinitely more effective than Hojlund this year. Therefore the problem has been most acute more recently.
Amorim was told to implement his system even though did not have players that fit it. INEOS threw away this season after the sacking of Ten Hag and hopes to hit the ground running next season. Amorim said in his first press conference that there would be a lot of pain and suffering this season. He knew that these players were not fit for his style of football.
So when you moan about results this season you should keep in mind that they don't matter to the people in charge. They knew things were going to be bad this season.
If by the end of next season, we don't see a massive improvement in results, Amorim will be replaced.
So when you moan about results this season you should keep in mind that they don't matter to the people in charge. They knew things were going to be bad this season.
If by the end of next season, we don't see a massive improvement in results, Amorim will be replaced.
Let's put some things into perspective.
Amorim has a WORSE win rate than
Even the disastrous Gary Neville at Valencia is almost identical to Amorim.
After Gerrard was sacked, Emery immediately turned their tide. It's not usually about getting your own players but managing the team you have.
Amorim has a WORSE win rate than
- Gerrard at Villa. In 27 games at Villa Gerrard had 13 wins. Amorim on 34 games has 14 wins.
Even the disastrous Gary Neville at Valencia is almost identical to Amorim.
- Gary Neville 28 games at Valencia had 10 wins. Amorim has had 6 more games played and had 4 more wins.
After Gerrard was sacked, Emery immediately turned their tide. It's not usually about getting your own players but managing the team you have.
You keep mentioning Ten Hag wanted Hojlund, Ten Hag wanted Kane without question was his number 1 target, the club presented Hojlund as an alternative and I surmise he thought he could work with him rather than go without a striker
I'm sure everyone wanted Kane, but ultimately, if you consistently bring in terrible strikers under the same manager, the problem isn't the players themselves; its also the decision makers. And Ten Hag, as manager, would've undoubtedly had a big hand in that process, otherwise we wouldn't have ended up with so many Ajax, Dutch, or former Dutch league players on our books during his time.
Are you kidding me with this? RvP left the club 10 years ago. 10 years! Falcao was a failure and left 10 years ago having scored a grand total of 4 goals. Rooney left 8 years ago and was playing as a midfielder when he did. Zlatan was great for a year and then got broken and that was 7 years ago... Surly we can all agree that 7 years ago is long term in terms of a football team?
Cavani played when he wanted and really solved very little. Ronaldo was a stop gap that created more problems than he solved.
You're also forgetting Lukaku who was another big money attempt to solve the long standing striker issue that failed.
A bad start is 6-10 games not more than half a season.
That's why I qualified my statement with the phrase "post Fergie years".
And thank you for bringing up Lukaku - another very good striker we've had in the "post Fergie years".
What does "post Fergie years" have to do with whether or not it is a long term problem or not? You're being incredibly disingenuous and arguing in bad faith.
It means exactly what it implies - strikers bought after Fergie retired. If you don't understand what I'm saying then its best to drop it and move on.
Well that's not relevant to what was being discussed.
But to respond to your point, if he goes on to be successful and then stays for, say, 4 more seasons, then this will indeed be considered as a bad start.
I'm sure the expectation is for him to be our manager for many years, so you're right. Hopefully a few years on, this season will be reflected on as a bumpy beginning to a successful career at United.
To be fair, ETH wanted Kane.
People can’t have it both ways and say “all ETH signings were muck” and dismiss his ambition of bringing in a player who would of made a massive difference to the quality of the squad and dare I say might of guaranteed champions league last season. Goals have literally been our problem and Kane is 20+ in most seasons.
United not being able to get Kane was a reflection of how the clubs been run and the squads continually disjointed, not specifically ETH. The same way that united, as a destination has become more about how much a player can make off the club as opposed to how appealing the club is on field.
Im not sure having different managers the last 11 years would have made a massive difference. The same incompetent people made the decisions during that term, all that’s led us here. Maybe they’d of made even worse appointments. People presume different would equate to better but we see now how far the club , stadium and team has rotted. This isn’t simply down to bad manager picks, it’s far deeper then that.
We were talking about having a long term issue in a position in the football team... If you don't think that including players that haven't played for the club for 7+ years is pushing the boundaries of reasonability then I don't know what to tell you.
I understand exactly what you're saying and it has absolutely no baring on whether or not we had a long standing striker issue.
I don't get the love for Amorim. Like he is guaranteed to succeed. Based on what? Winning the Portuguese league. Not winning the Champions league or even the Europa league with Sporting, but just because he won the Portuguese league. Like who were the managers before Amorin since Sportings last league title? A bunch of nobodies, its not like great managers had tried but failed and along came Amorim or anything. Too much credit in the bank.
He lost to ETHs ajax in both games of CL too.
I wasn't suggesting he didn't want Kane. I'm sure there were several clubs who would've wanted to sign him. And agree on the latter point as well. Our fundamental problems as a club are obviously not all on ETH. The specific profile of players we bought over the past few years, can however be linked to ETH's time. Some of them are good ones (Martinez, Casemiro, Ugarte), but many of them were pointless (Weghorst, Mount, Hojlund, Antony), and its the latter group have haven't really contributed much in way of goals, which is something Amorim, through no fault of his own, inherited.
Needlessly aggressive post to someone who made reasonable points. Yes Amorim did good things with Sporting but Arteta, unlike him, was up against the biggest cheating operation in the history of any sport and in any just world City would have been punished and we'd won those 2 years. He also won an FA Cup, a trophy which is suddenly prized by all United fans and points wise he made progress year on year. Our squad was truly scraping bottom of the barrel and we were a banter club but even then finishing 8th was unthinkable never mind 17th. That's on Amorim. Arteta when he came in realised our team is dogshitte for his possession football and promptly dumped his favored style till he got his team in. Amorim is sinking your team week in week out playing the same nonsensical formation, knowing you don't have the team for it yet. Its just dire I am sorry.
I am sorry to say there is no way this United team is THIS bad. There is no way United's squad is this poor that outside of the 3 bottom teams they will finish 17th. Or are you saying the entire league outside of relegation three have better teams? All 16 teams? United are very lucky the bottom 3 are terrible, you could have faced relegation. Are you saying your team is bad enough to be relegated?
What has happened to your club? Excusing such awful results for someone with no links to United. What next? You sack Amorim in October and then the next manager can lose from October to June and its good enough?
He’s extremely likeable is the thing, and has charisma.
Add to that he’s binned off and called out some of players the fans have tended to hate (Antony, Rashford) and you’ve got a perfect scenario for the love in.
Has anyone made the case that he is "guaranteed" to succeed ?
It's not a scoreboard battle with who's won the most trophies prior to joining their club. Arne Slot may have been a nobody to you, but Liverpool (or Michael Edwards) wouldnt hire anyone he made sure he found the perfect fit and that included interviewing Amorim and deciding Slot is the better fit. Anyways, none of this would be a topic if Amorim didn't go 6 league wins in 22 games, it doesn't matter what he done in the past it's what he's doing now and he's failing, miserably.
No but it's almost like that. " never mind that we are rubbish " "it's the players" "give him a couple of season and you'll see" Based on what? He is getting a very easy ride for such an awful season.
True but I think the club has allowed too much responsibility for failure falling on a managers shoulders.
The clubs transfer policy, even when spending, even when getting impressive looking signings on paper, has been awful. Throwing quality players into broken squads and blaming managers with mish mash squads and quite lame sticky tape options (ighalo, weghorst etc).
I think if we had a well run club and the same managers we’d seldom be out of CL. Not one manager ever had what you would call a proper quality squad. Bits and pieces of things. Jose ironically probably doing the best and people called him finished as if he was the problem. His record in the two seasons the club actually supported him, is the best on paper.
Im not here to defend him either, I just feel the problem has been united , not every manager we hired.
Aye, I think the smarter thinking is ”look, he’s been a bit shite, but we need some new recruits regardless so let’s hope we can win the EL, get in a few new players and let’s see how he starts next season”.
But there really is a feck tonne that lay zero blame on him this year and are convinced he’ll be amazing next season. It’s fecking weird.
He's a very likable guy and comes across a bit like the anti Ten Hag, who just really grated with some. I pointed it out at the time but when he joined some people were so enamored with his personality in contrast to ETH that it was put forward as a big reason he'd succeed. He wants to control games and have more possession, which is what people have wanted for a while and were expecting from ETH. He's achieved that to an extent, particularly in big games where we hold our own better, but I'd also suggest it's a bit of a low bar based on where we were, and while we've improved we're still a long way from controlling most games. But I think a lot of people are happy to see progress in an area where we had been regressing.
It's also pretty tiring to constantly dislike the manager so after Ten Hag I think a lot of people are especially invested in not being in that place again. Also to be fair the default position people should have is to want to support the manager. I personally have a difficult time holding it against anyone who just wants to support the manager and find it odd when people get angry at it.
It is quite amazing that we have Arsenal fans telling us we're giving the manager too much backing. Of all the supporters to be telling us that.
Reminder. 12 months into the job Arteta had Arsenal in 15th.
If Amorim does that he'll be sacked I'm sure.
Reminder. 12 months into the job Arteta had Arsenal in 15th.
If Amorim does that he'll be sacked I'm sure.