Of course it’s possible that some fans expected a very difficult season.
Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach
- Thread starter sewey89
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Yes, difficult. The example frequently brought up was Klopp's first season where they finished 8th or 9th. Where they lost a bunch of games to midtable sides, but had big wins against City, us and Dortmund where you could see what Klopp was trying to do.
But as we keep losing, the story's slowly morphing into how this is the best anyone could've done, considering our players are somehow not even PL quality.
Wasting another season by delaying the inevitable is not exactly my wish
I wasn’t expecting miracles when he was originally appointed due to the timing and state of our squad but his league form is so concerning.
Think there’s a good chance he doesn’t make it till Christmas next season if it continues like this next season. He’s got to get a lot more from this current group of players because we aren’t going to be able to strengthen a lot especially if we don’t win the Europa League.
Think there’s a good chance he doesn’t make it till Christmas next season if it continues like this next season. He’s got to get a lot more from this current group of players because we aren’t going to be able to strengthen a lot especially if we don’t win the Europa League.
No, that's not what is being said at all. You should read the previous posts before responding to one post in isolation so as to understand the context.
The point is that Wolves and Everton have different aspirations to United. There goal this season, when they sacked Dyche and O'Neill, was survival.
As I said in my previous posts, coming in, lifting morale and making a team more solid defensively is often all it takes to scrape a few wins and drag a half-decent side like Everton or Wolves out of trouble.
The problem for those clubs and those managers is where they go next. We saw in the case of Moyes that he was an abject failure at United. The job was too big for him, he looked completely broken after a few months. He also had no idea how to play the sort of football required to break-down mid / low blocks. Remember the Fulham game at OT? At that point, he'd ran out of ideas to the point we simply resorted to crossing the ball as often as possible, breaking a PL record in the process.
So to repeat the point...I have seen hundreds of managers come in, steady a ship, produce better results short-term...and then get sacked 12-months later.
What Amorim is doing us a complete root and branches transformation of the team. That takes time. You really don't think that Amorim couldn't set us up in a 4-2-3-1 and win a few games? That would be a complete waste of time though, and would go against the directive he has been given by the executives.
I didn't realise we'd won 6 and draw 5 to be honest, so he's actually getting better results than I'd thought in the Premier League
Yes what Amorim did is tremendous as he inculcate a sense of identity and system in the team. Players play with a sense of direction unless last time.
The team is good at knock out rounds and winning cup competition.
The team is good at knock out rounds and winning cup competition.
At least we did not get another false dawn this time around, our expectations have been well and truly grounded. I really like Amorim as a person and I genuinely hope that he succeeds. I do think that our performances have improved, but the results have been dire. This is unfortunately a results based business. He definitely deserves some patience because he was given an impossible job, the squad was/is horrific, numerous problems with individuals, confidence shot due to ETH. I really hope that we get at least 4 quality additions during the summer and that we can see next season what is possible.
I am not expecting us to win the Europa League but obviously it would be incredible if we do and would give Amorim and the club a very much needed boost for next year.
I am not expecting us to win the Europa League but obviously it would be incredible if we do and would give Amorim and the club a very much needed boost for next year.
I like how we went from "Is this the best squad we had post Fergie" to "this is the worst squad we ever had" within the span of a season.
Good post. What Amorim has done has been risky, but hopefully it will bear fruit with a full preseason with the team.
The funny thing is, when we have a manager that starts off well then becomes crap.. like Jose, Ole, Ten Hag, fans will say we need to strip it all back and start again.
Now we have a manager that is stripping it all back and starting fresh, fans dont like it.
Its almost people thought it would be a magic wand and we will become better.. what is the point of being good for 6 months every 2/3 years? I rather be completely crap... get rid of all the toxic players and build properly.
We have seen managers always change their style to save their jobs and its been crap, he is looking to put his style in and the management are backing him in this. We will start to see consistency and improvement I believe.
And the team has also performed better in Europe than some expected.
Funnily enough, United have also had some really good performances against good sides; where you can see what Amorim is trying to do.
That is true, it's not the same situation and it's not entirely comparable. But there is an issue with discussion here, which is sometimes people don't want to compare United to anyone.
If you bring up top level continental clubs changing managers mid-season and getting instant results, the comparison is dismissed because those clubs had much better squads from the outset. If you bring up lower level clubs changing managers mid-season and getting instant results, the comparison is dismissed because those clubs have different objectives. That leaves us with other PL clubs who changed managers mid-season to overhaul their team, like Liverpool (Klopp) and Arsenal (Arteta). But what tends to happen is that when the comparison reflects poorly on the United manager, the differences (squad/position/etc.) are once again used to argue that the comparison can't be fully made.
The end result is that people are asked to trust a mode of operation that is largely unprecedented in modern football and that cannot be compared to anything. Obviously some people will be very skeptical of that.
We haven't had enough firepower to finish teams off. Even in games we ended up losing comprehensively, there are examples where we were doing well and then conceded a soft goal, which then caused the teams brittle confidence to fracture and we'd concede 2 more. At least the team seems a lot more resilient now, but we just can't score enough from the chances we do create in most matches.
I also think people overlook just how many players have been missing through injury as well. These are players who still might not be good enough at the end of the day, but they're a huge miss when the team is already struggling. Dalot, De Ligt, Martinez, Amad and even Zirkzee would probably all have started against Bilbao tomorrow, but at this point who knows if any of them will play again this season. I'm not sure what happened to De Ligt, and Amad we might see again, but we'll have wait and see.
I understand the sentiment that Amorim should be getting more from this team, and there are probably managers who would have done, simply by playing a simpler system. I'm getting really annoyed at how much context is left out when discussing the situation we're in though.
Well it’s a fairly unique situation, wouldn’t you say? A club of United stature with such a poor squad, after decades of managed decline, sacking a manager mid season for a new manager, with a view to make radical changes to the club culture and playing style. Can you think of a remotely similar situation to compare it to?
What's different to Klopp at Liverpool?
The ones I mentioned in my post?
He inherited a really similar situation, I mean…
A club of Liverpool’s stature with such a poor squad, after decades of managed decline, sacking a manager mid season for a new manager, with a view to make radical changes to the club culture and playing style.
You could have said exactly this after Klopp’s first 6 months at Liverpool.
Yeah, I was surprised they didn't see this as they typed. It's uncanny.A Liverpool squad that has recently lost the title in the last days of the season, and was able to sell an unwanted player for 150m euros to fund a rebuild? With an ownership change thrown in for good measure? A club losing 100m a season, with players earning 300k a week who weren’t putting effort in?
Literally of those applied to Klopp. It's kind of a silly comparison though because we'd be delighted if Amorim turns out to be anywhere near as good a manager as Klopp.
What the results and performances in the first few months mean is that he desperately needs a much better start next season, I'm not expecting us to be close to the top 6 next year but we need to put in some actually good performances (there have basically been none of them in the league) to build optimism of what he can build more sustainably in time, we need to be more exciting in our play and to be a few places higher in the league. If we don't see that progress in the first 2 or 3 months of next season then he will be in trouble.
It really isn’t,
That unwanted player was sold after 2 and a bit years into Klopp's time. They lost the title and then sold their best player and best young player (Suarez and Sterling, plus Gerrard left and Sturridge was never fit again) and replaced them with the likes of Rickie Lambert, Mario Balotelli, Lazar Markovic and Christian Benteke. Even Lallana and Firmino looked like potential disasters until Klopp turned up. They were in a very similar situation but, as I said in my previous post, it's a silly comparison because Klopp is such a high standard for us to expect from Amorim.
It's just being United. Even if it's in your face how much we're going to struggle you can't predict being 14th. Our history makes it very difficult to believe we're going to be that bad.
Goal difference last season was -1. Fulham were 13th on -6. A handful of goals the difference between 8th and 13th.
and all we did to improve the goalscoring was....add Zirkzee(whilst letting McTominay go).
There's an arrogance to that we can't repeat this summer. We can't just assume because we're United goals will just happen.
Fair play. Needless to say, he didn’t have a great first season either, and there were many posters on this forum laughing at Liverpool and Klopp then, too. The lack of any patience for some is truly bizarre.
Mike Tyson's quote applies to all recent United managers. They all have a plan, until they get punched in the face.
This club keeps knocking 'em out.
This club keeps knocking 'em out.
In a previous post on this page I said that it's not going to be good next year (I don't see us becoming a side that qualifies for Europe from the league) and Amorim needs time to get things right but it will have to be markedly better.
You're right that Klopp didn't immediately get things right but they weren't this bad, got to 2 cup finals and, maybe mostly importantly, had some notable results and performances that their fans could cling to (in the first couple of months they scored 4 at City and 3 at Chelsea and then a couple of months later destroyed us in the Europa League) as evidence of what it could be. Amorim has had some decent results and performances in the big games but nothing as impressive, a couple of those early next season would be helpful to keep the faith when we inevitably play badly or go on a poor run of results.
I would still maintain that the circumstances Amorim has walked in to are more difficult than those that Klopp walked in to.
That might be true, I probably would agree, but it's debatable. Regardless of that he also just needs to be better at his job next year, we can't be as easy to play against and so we have to nail recruitment and he needs to get this team better set up.
I think it's plainly obvious that Amorim was hired to improve the clubs standing in the league and the European hopes of qualification. He's massively underperformed in contrast to that perception. There's no way INEOS intended to just write off the season or conclude a poor league campaign. If that was the case, it would have been more logical to keep Ruud in the job as an interim and wait until the summer.
The only silver lining for Amorim is his poor tenure coincides with Berrada electing his position. So it reflects poorly on INEOS for choosing a manager who's philosophy / system has no correlation to the players available. This is reportedly why Liverpool never hired Ruben despite the interest.
I'm not convinced in the slightest that Amorim has the managerial repertoire to succeed. Like Erik winning (respectfully) in a smaller league is almost the equivocation of being 10th in the domestic English league so these types of managers have a much lower ceiling in a more competitive environment.
If however, Amorim wins the Europa league it will certainly prove me wrong given his capabilities. But if you can't win a fixture against Bilbao / Spurs / Glimt in this weakened rescheduling of the Europa league, why would anyone think he's even capable of getting top four with a few new additions. It's already visible how little an impact Dorgu has had, he is undoubtedly an Amorim orientated signing.
The only good thing out of everything around United now is that the manager is on an 18 month term. That one detail is the only positive for Berrada especially.
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True. Chances are, though, that he's a lesser manager, too. Most current ones are. Both things can be true. It's a silly comparison that for some reason keeps finding its way into the managerial debate. Liverpool struck gold, the whole world knew it (even if some didn't want to accept it). Klopp told them in his first presser "I got you, in 5 years we'll win the league", and everyone (except for the most impatient) went "fine, boss". There wasn't a "... but, but, but, we nearly won it a year ago". If Amorim says something similar, he'll be ripped to shreds and it won't be because the press love the scousers. That's our problem, how to navigate the dark transitional period without a paternal figure who held our hand for a quarter of a century.
We definitely hired him with some current year goals in mind already, otherwise we would not have insisted on him joining this year already. He has failed spectacularly in the league, there's no argument about it, to an extent that even ETH did not even come close to as bad as he was. He can still redeem himself in EL, though I'm not super positive about Athletic tie and even there he was incredibly lucky to have come away with a win v Lyon.
He will get next season but if he keep performing at this abysmal level, he'll be gone by Christmas.
He will get next season but if he keep performing at this abysmal level, he'll be gone by Christmas.
Klopp’s first part season and Amorim’s are absolute night and day though.
Thats the major difference... Media. There is clearly a media agenda against United... just look at how they talk about Rashford now to when at United. He is having the same performances but they are amazing now.
Look at the lack of attention towards flops like Sancho, Murdyk, Felix etc...
I agree I think managerial talent is demonstrable much like a football player who shows promise. When Amorim was hired there was never a notion of realistically winning the league (in his tenure). Klopp has played a fantastic brand of football and the intensity behind his ideology translated very effectively into the premier league. I recall Sir Alex even saying he would win the league with Liverpool shortly after he was hired.
This is why a few pages back I made a comparison behind the expectation of both PSG and United in regards to the managers hired. PSG have massively underperformed in expectations given the quality of the managers they attained. When you contrast that list with who United have chosen, it's no suprise the team hasn't won a meaningful competition beyond a decade. It will take a very good / borderline world class coach for United to become a threat again.
In ten years only Mourinho (on a downward trajectory) has fit that criteria and coincidentally he has been competitively the most successful United manager. Until I subjectively see a manager with a very discernable capacity I predict it's more of the same, where the club are heading into seasons with no clear objectives just hope propelled by emotion.
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Klopp took them from 10th spot to 8th.
We’ve gone from 13th to 14th.
Hardly ‘night and day’. The reason there wasn’t some amazing progress immediately for either is because both were/are trying to implement a new system, which takes time - that’s the point. I’m sure there were plenty of inpatient Liverpool fans that first half year moaning about a lack of progress too, failing to see the bigger picture.
If there is no situation that is comparable then that means there is no proven track record of this strategy ever working, which means people ought to stop being so negative toward everyone that expresses concerns about it.
That is not to say the strategy is doomed to failure or anything like that.
Klopp inherited what was arguably a worse squad than Amorim when he took over at Liverpool and still managed to finish as high as 8th without a proper transfer window.
I don't really think their squad was worse, but the situations are definitely close enough to compare. Klopp took a while to set the world alight alright, but he managed to do so without going to the lows we're currently going through.
But then Klopp is also one of the best managers this century.