Conceded 12 goals in the last 5 games it's not just the forwards
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.
Conceded 12 goals in the last 5 games it's not just the forwards
Read your first sentence before realising it needed a JUST in there.
That's fair enough.
As very very obviously the attack is an incredible problem. Even if Amad and Zirkzee were fit it's the weakest attack we've had in memory.
All I want to know is genuinely how many United fans will still back Ruben if he’s had 20 PL matches next season to the new year and 27 this season and he’s still only won 25% of those matches which is 12 and he’s lost 24 which is 50% ?
We would definitely be in a real relegation fight then and we might not have two games per week or European Football to use as an excuse?
Or will those fans that back him now finally do a full 180 like they did with ETH and say we should have sacked him earlier.
It’s ok for an Elite Club to sack underperforming coaches, you might have to change 3 or 4 until you get the right one that can handle the pressure, has the elite experience, is tactically very astute and wants to attack other team from the first minute of the game.
Haha, yep but thats such cafeism. So used to it. I remember it becoming quite prevalent when Leicester were doing well (they would eventually always bottle qualifying for the CL) but during the periods of doing well and playing good football, all their players were much better than ours.
If he plays Hojlund vs Bilbao then he's digging his own grave really. I get options are thin but I genuinely believe we get more goals without Hojlund in the team.
We have played make shift defence in a few of those games and the goalscoring has been well below the xG
If you look at my posts, I definitely don't give him an easy ride, but to say it's his side is a tad unfair.
We also keep going behind in games which is flattering our performances because the opposition have something to protect and therefore we will have more possession and more shots but we're chasing the game. We obviously need higher quality attackers but we need to improve drastically everywhere (not just in terms of recruitment but in terms of developing players and improving the way we play) otherwise we will be in a similar position next season. We've had the most touches in the league in our own defensive 3rd but are in midtable for touches further up the field, Amorim has to change things to make it easier for us to progress the ball otherwise the likes of Cunha won't get a touch until we're already losing.
Who should he play?
The defence clearly won’t win us titles but if you kept it as is and then gave us even a 25-50% better attack we’d probably be in the top 8. We’ve thrown so many chances and games away.
In the league we have conceded less than Villa and only 3 more than Newcastle. We would be in the hunt for European football with a competent attack
If MDL is back he can throw Maguire up top. Or he can put Mainoo, Garnacho or Mount as a false 9. All of these players offer more than Hojlund
Insisting on playing Hojlund into form and then benching him as soon as he scores doesn't sound like great managing. Could see it
I don’t think Mount does and Maguire can do it at the end of a game sure when the opposition are parked in their box but not in a proper game
Hojlund also just scored so
That’s my feeling. It’s clutching a bit because you never know how the games would end up even if we took more of our chances.
I think it’s worth considering though.
I know I will get called delusional here but I would contend that the United side we've seen in recent months is markedly improved on the one we saw across the first half of the season.
It's not showing because we're not getting results from it but I think at this point that is predominantly because our forward line is massively underperforming. You'd have to be blind to argue that Amorim's first few months weren't a complete mess - we were utterly tragic up until about the end of February to the point where even I was seriously questioning whether he'd keep his job.
With that said, I think it's fair to say that we've not played abysmally badly in any of our last 8 league matches with the exception of the Newcastle one. And in spite of that, we have taken two wins. To back this up somewhat, here are our results in these matches with the expected goals (as per Understat) in brackets:
Manchester United 3-2 Ipswich
(xG: 1.40-1.04)
Manchester United 1-1 Arsenal
(xG: 1.31-1.83)
Leicester City 0-3 Manchester United
(xG: 1.30-1.14)
Nottingham Forest 1-0 Manchester United
(xG: 0.51-1.87)
Manchester United 0-0 Manchester City
(xG: 1.23-0.69)
Newcastle United 4-1 Manchester United
(xG: 2.64-0.79)
Manchester United 0-1 Wolves
(xG: 1.14-0.19)
Bournemouth 1-1 Manchester United
(xG: 0.61-1.91)
Now I'm not saying that these expected goals numbers indicate that we've been absolutely outstanding these past 8 matches by any stretch. With that being said, we've been out-matched on xG in three of those eight games, with two of those against Arsenal and Newcastle who frankly just have much better teams than us right now. (Ironically, the other was against Leicester which really isn't great but we won that game 3-0!)
The point I'm trying to make here is that I sincerely think we have improved in recent weeks, and it's gone under the radar because we aren't getting the results to show for it. The Newcastle match was a horror-show, and we deserved the battering we got in that match, but on the balance of play we've at least matched our opponents in every other game in that list. Our attack just isn't clinical enough to reliably win the games which are on a knife edge, and the squad in general isn't yet good enough to be dominant in the majority of our matches.
Again, I don't imagine it'll be a popular opinion here but I truthfully believe our performances in these past few months have been a massive improvement on Amorim's earlier showings and also an improvement on the last season and a bit of football that Ten Hag oversaw. In both cases, we'd regularly get absolutely outclassed by even mediocre opponents.
It sort of makes sense if Hojlund could make a case in the two PL games before Bilbao then he's worth a punt. He clearly didn't though and has been much of the same.
You dont think Palace have a better team and squad than us? Seriously? We're TERRIBLE. Bruno gets in their side, Amad does, and Shaw if fit and at his peak - thats it on a talent basis.
Hojlund scored almost by accident today, it really means nothing given how chronically bad he is.
Maguire is capable of disrupting a defence far more than Hojlund. The only area he'd struggle is if he has space to run into, but Hojlund has almost always failed in this department himself. As a minimum Maguire would be able to knock the ball down for runners around him, which is an immediate improvement.
Mount is also better (if fit) in pretty much every category I can think of.
Yeah I’m not having Mount who has done feck all in a United shirt and no we should not play Maguire up top (don’t want to see us playing hoof ball for 90 mins)
Bruno or Mainoo sure
And who would be able to answer that to you? That guy would probably have no time to post on here because being able to look into the future is quite lucrative from a financial standpoint I suppose.
Yes, the form we are in is very worrying, no doubt about that. But that form isn't happening just because of the coach. If he had all players available this year, I'd understand the outcry but he didn't. So people give him some slack. You don't - message has been received.
Given the nature of this place, they will turn on him quickly yes. Some wont until the last moment. As with every manager in our latest history.
We aren't an Elite Club and the earlier we start to realize that, the earlier we can start finally moving towards becoming one again. I have not the slightest cue whether or not Amorim can do this or that and right now, I get a bit worried but I also realize that some of the issue to play into our misery since years aren't connected to him. And that means we can roll the dice over and over and over and we would still find ourselves in trouble. I think, your premise is wrong, you don't just go on a merry around until finally some manager miraculously turns out the perfect fit. Good teams with a structured recruitment and continuety outside of managers can do that - but we don't right now because we don't have that luxury. I am fairly certain even if we get rid of Amorim, the next guy will suffer from the exact same issues. So I decide to give him time, take the punches if necessary and work through the rough times that aren't the result of Amorim being here but from 10 years acting clueless as a football club
No way we had less xG than arsenal in our home game?! We had the better chances by far
Mount is far better than Hojlund and Maguire can do more with the ball at his feet than Hojlund. Neither of them slip unprovoked multiple times in a game so thats already a big improvement.
We can't seriously have people asking for Maguire to start up front?
Cool story, we agree to disagree especially on Maguire
If have one of Garna/Mainoo/Bruno/Mount as a false 9 and maguire as emergency.
But hypothetically speaking if we started with Maguire he'd be a bigger threat than Hojlund would for a 90 minute period.
He does appear to be Zlatan reincarnated when he’s up there.
We also wouldn't be able to play any football on the floor for 90 mimutes as Maguire would have a 0% success rate in receiving the ball to feet and keeping it.
I know Hojlund's hold up play isn't the best but come on now..
It's not a debate we had a stronger squad under Ole. The issue is people are trying to somehow bash Ole for playing pragmatic football that largely worked and praise Amorim for what he has delivered to date, which is disappointing against any realistic expectations.
It stems from the same attitude that Amorim is infallible, and that he has discovered a "system" that is superior to others. To be honest, I don't even know what Amorim ball is outside of the formation.
Margins are so thin, it’s so important to realize this before making hasty decisions. Can a couple more players guarantee us 20 more goals a season, even if our general play doesn’t improve? If so, where would we be with that? Possibly top 6-8?
What if our general play was to improve and we add a better CM and a better GK, for example?
Forest were transformed with a half decent GK and a 6’5 CB. They identified their main issue and corrected it and look at the result.
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Who do you want to see him targeting?
Who said our general play would not improve with better attacking players?
Also who said we shouldn’t improve GK or defence?
Fact is we can improve the GK or other positions we will still finish bottom half with the same attacking options
Thanks for the reply and those expected goals stats are interesting but don’t show how a game might have gone. Where we throwing the kitchen sick at them in the last 5-10mins for example when we were lethargic up to that point.
He has stopped us from getting run through easily but it still happens too often, Newcastle and Lyon being examples in the last few games.
I know our forward line has been poor all season and that’s as much on the players as Amorim but it’s still his job to work out answers to those problems and so far he’s not been able to.
If we manage to bring in some new attackers for next season he needs to have those answers from game week 1.
Maybe clumsy wording on my part. Clearly, the squad is a mish mash of other managers bad decision making but he has clearly made big decisions on the squad.
Yes, it was only one major signing in Dorgu, but he allowed attacking players to leave and didn't replace them. He made that decision.
He made tbe decison to leave us in a situation where we were an Amad injury away from having virtually no pace in the team.
He's made that decision to play 343 and stick with it when it's clear that it's not working.
Again, my wider point earlier up in the thread is that he's playing the long game but needed to make better decisions in the short term.
Essentially tossing the 2nd half of the league season away means we need to start next season like we did in 2006. If we're 10th by the start of October, the pressure on him will be immense and Im not sure he has the personality to overcome that.
When you have a turnover of over £600m per season, a stadium that holds 75,000+ and a wage bill of over £300m, you are most definitely an Elite Professional Football Team!
Do we have Elite ownership, Elite Executives who run the club or even an Elite playing Squad or Coach?
Absolutely not but don’t ever say Manchester United with all of it’s heritage and history is not an Elite Club, that’s absolute nonsense.
No I don’t, I think they have been coached to play in this formation better than ours have.
If we played 4231 this season we’d finish higher than them I believe as we have in however many other seasons before this one.
I’m not advocating a change to 4231 by the way, but he changed the formation and hans to get us playing it a lot better than we currently are.
What do you see with the eye test though?
XG aside, how many high quality chances are we creating for the forwards? Today we maybe had one big chance with the Garnacho 1vs1, and then a lot of pot shots.
What is our strategy for moving the ball through the thirds, aside from give it Bruno?
What threatening positions have you seen the wingbacks in? When have we created an overload from having the extra defender breaking lines?
Do we have control in games? Why are we not more solid despite often playing 5 genuine defenders and a double pivot.
The eye test shows quite a few missed chances. We didn't have much trouble getting the ball into the final third, but we did have plenty of the usual problems capitalizing on our chances, which seems to be backed up by the xG.
I personally think that "massive improvement" is pushing it a bit but I tend to agree that we at least try to play some football these days, with a few combinations and culture and not being as rushed as we were before. How much of that is on Amorim is difficult to say but given that he is talking about control and this being a staple for his Sporting side I guess it is just fair to attribute some of it to him. The injuries haven't really helped the match stats as well I guess though.
Playing pragmatic football has been the right thing to do when he took over. But when we made him a permanent manager, it just prolonged the misery because he seems to try to run on the same principles as SAF without a) being as good b) being as dominant financially and c) without the support system SAF had. When Ole started his "right English character" thing our rivals were long into collective principles, had sophisticated pressing approaches running, counterpressing, positional play, use of data science. We missed all of those trends. Not just because of Ole of course, but his time was the ultimate sidestep. ETH has failed his assignment, no doubt, but at least he attempted to modernize our way of playing. Amorim seems to do the same. It might not work out and going pragmatic might work in terms of stabilizing results but all our rivals employ modern principles so we are at a serious disadvantage as long as we don't catch up. The crisis at hand isn't JUST players even when they make a fairly big chunk of it.
No not at all. Thats hyperbole and pushes the limit of being disingenious. Nobody says he is infallible and nobody thinks he is doing a great job and should be freed of any question. All that is possible but there is a lot of space between criticising him and asking for him to be sacked where some on here are quite closely to. And all the hyping up of the EL as the FINAL STAND is to a large part feeding into it.