Bruno as well. He's playing better now than at any point during ETH's time, and will probably hit 20 goals for the first time in 5 years.
Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach | Thread locked during matches
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Bruno as well. He's playing better now than at any point during ETH's time, and will probably hit 20 goals for the first time in 5 years.
This is our main issue we are the architects of our own misfortune 90% of the time. Sloppy passing causes us so many problems.
It’s the main thing Amorim, the coaches and the players have to rectify for next season. No other team is as poor with the ball as we are.
Agreed and its so frustrating to watch.... I watch other teams play out the back and they manage to beat our press and I can probably count how many times in a season we break a press..
It is one of the biggest improvements needed for this team.. For context I remembered 2 incidents from last night.
1. Down the left we did pretty well playing out the back, Bruno from LW passed the ball to Ugarte and he lost it on the half way line... 20 seconds later, Onana is pushing a shot out for a corner. Not only does losing it there get us on the backfoot, it gets the crowd going, it means we cant control and push up the pitch.
2. We had a similar move, played out well and ball went into Garnacho on the half way line, he lost it and again ended up with a shot for Bilbao.
Just those things, keep the ball means you have the ball for 2 mins more and the opposition doesn't get chances.
If would improve us so much if all our players can keep the ball and pass it to feet.
Lyon and Bilbao not brilliant results? You can give Amorim that surely.
Confidence is important. But that's not just what you said is it. You calimed Amorim has ruined Garnacho's confidence. "It's on him" to quote.
Which is a big, overly critical, guess.
It's also blaming the manager for individual mistakes(if we can call missing lots of chances a mistake) which you said wasn't happening.
Athletic going down to 10 men made all the difference in the world. Vivian (a total cnut) doesn't make that foul, then Højlund just misses another sitter and the game continues with a 0-1 lead. Sitting back with extra defensive players works when you've got the extra time and space you get playing against 10.
I think we looked pretty good except for that spell you mentioned. Probably would have escaped with a 1-goal advantage had the pen/red not been given. Athletic will be up for it, should be a good return leg. Hopefully we stay on the front foot and don't sit back inviting them onto us.
Only that we would be 2-0 with 11 men if he didn't make the foul...
So we would have played the game 2-0 up and Bilbao coming at us... meaning even more space to make it 3-0 or 4-0...
We also should have had another pen when the same happened to Garnacho...
YOu make it sound as if for the first 20 mins we played a low block? when in fact we were trying to play football and created chances too.
Lyon was a fun game but feck me, I’m not sure it was game to stick to any hardline anti-Amorim (of which I absolutely have never been, but a very critical fan of the mistakes I believe he has made and will have to learn quickly from).
Last night was a brilliant result and display. He’s had a few good uns, nearly always in the bi games, Liverpool away for example.
And I didn’t say he “ruined” his confidence, but I’m pretty sure he knocked it yes. One of his international teammates agreed here.
But sure, keep pretending I said Amorim made Garnacho miss chances. feck me man.
Last night was the first time imo we have seen a 343 from Amorim. Wing backs were pushed right up, basically wingers. It was good to see.
He has to work out how to do this in the PL.
It's to be expected. I don't find it all that interesting or surprising, because 1) it's a results-based business, and 2) the football has looked pedestrian and ugly. People complain because they don't like what they see, and in many circumstances Amorim was the architect rather than the victim.
Add to that the idea that specialists are needed (who will be very expensive), and the likelihood of getting these players diminishes drastically. Without those players, Amorim can't implement his preferred style. So it's a matter of pragmatism. If Amorim isn't going to get enough of a squad overhaul, the football will suck (except in Europe, obviously) and in that scenario when he's eventually fired, we will have more square pegs.
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So Lyon wasn't a brilliant result. OK.
You've called the guy a "coward" and a "loudmouth."
You also said he should be sacked if he doesn't win the Europa, which is a perfectly ok opinion to have, but you keep claiming you haven't.
I mean there's not much worse you can say about him really
I think Amorim simply out-tactic'd their manager last night. He seemed to correctly presume that they would put us under immense pressure early and that we would subsequently have chances hit them on counters. The Garnacho offside goal springs to mind. But somehow we even managed to dominate possession, which was surprising.
So Lyon wasn't a brilliant result. OK.
You've called the guy a "coward" and a "loudmouth."
You also said he should be sacked if he doesn't win the Europa, which is a perfectly ok opinion to have, but you keep claiming you haven't.
I mean there's not much worse you can say about him really
We beat a 10 men Lyon at home despite getting close to utterly fecking it, no that’s not a “brilliant result”. Great fecking game though, absolutely mental, but great.
And can we first just confirm I said “realistically” but the same day I also posted…
Because despite logic telling me that 1.04 ppg over 27 games with no silver lining should realistically mean the sack, I like him and as I say here, I also buy into his like-ability factor and don’t want him sacked, regardless of the EL.
And yes, I just told you in the previous post that I think against smaller teams in the league, he’s been a massive coward with his selections at WB and it’s cost us.
I also absolutely think he’s shot his mouth off when it would’ve been better to keep it shut.
These are mistakes in my opinion but once again, not enough to put me off the guy, he’s just very likeable.
It’s very hard to read those posts and believe that individual ‘likes’ the manager, at all.So Lyon wasn't a brilliant result. OK.
You've called the guy a "coward" and a "loudmouth."
You also said he should be sacked if he doesn't win the Europa, which is a perfectly ok opinion to have, but you keep claiming you haven't.
I mean there's not much worse you can say about him really
Read my reply to that post on the previous page, and you’ll see that on the very same day I contradict that.
Even though logic tells me something, I just like him, and think it’d be a shame not to give him into next season regardless.
You see, I can separate liking the man, and calling out what I think have been daft mistakes and failures on his behalf.
Not much different from me calling Keane a loudmouth who should’ve kept it shut when questioning Bruno and the captaincy. I love Keano and find him very funny, but that was a dickhead thing to say.
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It would take an absolutely catastrophic collapse for us to not make the final. The league form has been appalling but he’s got a bit of credit in the bank if he can get to a European final in his first season with the club and more if he wins it. Considering how bad things have been it’s good that we’ve kept the season alive with the Europa League form.
Yep pretty much. After we went 1-0 up we were putting a lot of pressure on them. Hence the penalty and all that followed.
We may have gotten away with a few chances at the beginning but, we were turning it around even before the penalty and red card.
They also “got away” with a very close offside call for Garna’s goal.
I don't care about the result in the final in that way TBH, the idea that even Ange can salvage his position after presenting this season's shower of shite (more so in his second full season) seems ridiculous to me. They have scored the same goals as Arsenal, and they are sitting 30 points behind them with the manager saying that this is his football. Even if we win, it will be a stay of execution, if we don't get our act together. Next season, the midweek games in the CL will be unforgiving and if we don't start our league campaign on the front foot either, the pressure on Amorim will be tremendous and the Europa title won't mean anything. The only way to break the cycle of negativity is to play good football.
Problem number one is that we're easy to play against. The run-of-the-mill 442 defensive shape makes our build-up slow and laborious. You don't have to be particularly good at pressing us to make it hard for us. If you watch our games against midtable opposition, they don't even bother to press, they just shadow the pivots and the WBs, and let Onana and the centre-halves pass the ball from side to side. In the end, we either hoof the ball or we involve the WBs which is generally an if-all-else-fails scenario when you want to play out of the back and move the ball through the thirds. How bad is it? Grab your seat. No team in the PL has lost possession in their own half more than Manchester United. Let that sink in for a minute.
The centre-halves are obviously an issue. There's little ability in passing the ball through the lines with tempo and conviction, driving the ball forward or stepping up into the midfield. They're not alone, though. They also have poor options in the pivots ahead of them. We rarely see the midfielders offering themselves to receive the ball with their backs to goal. It's not who they are. That's why we never see the little bounce balls that test the opposition's shape and/or these "touch and short side-ball" sequences that often do the trick for other (more successful) teams who progress the ball centrally. Casemiro can do it occasionally, but he's a grenade-launcher on the ball, not a tempo-setter. Ugarte has his uses, but he's not the answer to anything. Mainoo is still too soft and often goes missing for periods within games. That leaves us with Bruno, the prescription for all ills. No one has created more chances and no one has lost the ball more times than him this season. Where would you want a player like that ideally? Closer to your forward or your keeper?
Besides, even if we do transition him into a more permanent deeper role, we'd still need to sign another midfielder. I've been screaming my lungs out about this for years. The last thing United need is a "destroyer" in the midfield. You put one next to Bruno, the first thing you achieve is make it easier for the opposition to mark him out of the game. The best combo currently seems to be him with Casemiro (the latter's passing stats are better with Bruno next to him). The major downside to that is that they're both high-risk passers. That's why SAF loved Carrick and never gave a rat's arse about the Fellainis, the Freds or the Ugartes of the football world. It's always easier to add a defensive body in the midfield battle when your risks (as a team that aims to play expansive football and win titles) don't pay off. The real challenge is to create a side that will take better care of the ball within these parameters.
I won't disagree about the #10s or the forwards. We don't see players wanting to receive the ball in the half-spaces and play combination football. They prefer to stay wide and then make the run in-behind. Who's going to play them in? You guessed it... Bruno, again, the man for all jobs. The downsides to having a single point of reference for creativity are obvious. Moreover, Bruno has the tendency to drop deeper when the opposition tactics are focused on not allowing him easy access to the spaces between the lines. Which creates other holes that aren't always easy to plug. So, yes, wherever we play him, we need better ballers all around (him).
We need to become less easy to play against for starters. The attack also needs to be looked at (our conversion rate is horrendous for a club of our size), but Amorim wants us to be vertical, aggressive and decisive on the ball. And when we do manage to move the ball with purpose through the thirds, thus getting our attackers on the ball running at an unorganized defence, these players can be dangerous. So, there's that. In a weird way, the Newcastle game seemed to be a microcosm of our season. We gave the ball away 50 times in our half. We had a prayer as long as Bruno could get in good positions between the lines, but evaporated when they man-marked him in the second half. Couldn't keep the ball for five seconds under pressure, but the one time we did, we scored the archetypical Amorim goal.
So Lyon wasn't a brilliant result. OK.
You've called the guy a "coward" and a "loudmouth."
You also said he should be sacked if he doesn't win the Europa, which is a perfectly ok opinion to have, but you keep claiming you haven't.
I mean there's not much worse you can say about him really
Get used to a lot more of this next year, the back-pedalling will be out in force
Fair fecks to him, he's getting the results he needed imo to keep the vultures at bay.
Winning this competition to get into the CL and possibly bringing in gyokeres because it works be massive. Totally changes the trajectory of the club in the short term.
Winning this competition to get into the CL and possibly bringing in gyokeres because it works be massive. Totally changes the trajectory of the club in the short term.
They will return the moment we don't get a good league result.
Haven’t remotely backpedaled. Convinced still we’ll be shite if he doesn’t get much braver with his WB selections.
I was right on Casemiro and him daftly alienating him, I’ll be right about the WBs too. Continue to play defensive fullbacks as wingbacks and we’ll be crap.
If he is to have us any better next season he is going to need 6 or 7 quality players signing for him this summer but if our budget is only 200m then we wont be able to afford all those players and will have to rely on the current players which he has been struggling to get performances out of for the last 6 months.
yeah good call, I somehow completely forgot to mention him. He's been incredible really considering how lost we are.
generally speaking I think there's enough positive signs to give this manager a good run next season
he'll need to hit the ground running at the start of next season though or the knives will be out quick
Different expectations though, they have not won a trophy in yonks.
I see next season as somewhat irrelevant to the cup final, for me great managers get their teams over the line whilst being able to build strong domestic seasons. Ten Hag showed he was decent in knock out games, our FA cup run was extremely difficult and he also got the league cup, Jose won multiple trophies, LVG won the FA cup, all the experienced managers won something, that is part of being a top manager. Where those guys failed is in the league. If Ruben gets this team over the line against Spurs (assuming no disaster at OT second leg) it at least shows there's an ability to win trophies/navigate knock out games even accepting quality of opposition. It also shows this really is our level post SAF (3 different managers have got the EL final in 9 seasons) and that is the real issue, we want to stay in the CL.
We could fairly then say domestically Amorim was pretty terrible but he's got us over the line in a cup, now he has to prove domestically he can do a lot more + the CL will be a good indicator of progress alongside the league given the new format means you play such a variety of teams.
My point re the CMs is more that Amorim clearly likes Ugarte, unless you can find some wizard who can do what Ugarte does AND play out (we aren't going to sign Valverde) I think we accept the creativity needs to come from further back to supplement Bruno. We saw vs Soton that a poor PL team with a good press can shut us down if they are tight on the WBs and Bruno, so where can we improve? The immediate thought is we want more offensive WBs, who are much higher and more like wingers but then I'm not sure Amorim wants that either? Amad played there but he seemed very hesitant to play Garnacho, Antony (think he had one cameo) although I understand this also might be players refusing to play the role as it's so arduous. I think he wants athletes there first and foremost i.e. Dorgu/Dalot
So really we need 10s who can dribble to a high level, are creative and have a goal threat which makes me think of Mainoo/Cunha as a nice pair if Amad agrees to play WB as his first position and therefore at least we get more threat/offense down that flank. CF I'm torn on because I want to see us get to a place where we're creating a huge amount more and then splash big on someone world class, I think there's so much risk in the CF market otherwise. For sure, take a £30m punt on Delap but I'm not sure he really moves the needle alone. maybe with CL football we can entice someone great but I think the real elite end of that market is unattainable for us this season.
Which class striker do you want Ruben to try and entice this summer with CL other than Gyökeres?
I heard it suggested that he may well look to the academy for solutions to the wing back issue next season. I guess if they aren't suitable he could go into the market next January like he did with Dorgu.
His midfield situation looks a tricky one, I know many people on here feel he needs someone who is capable of taking the ball off the back four and progressing it
In either direction
Another one added to my ignore list. Posting history nothing but negative shite
It's not a harsh red it's a red card that must be given according to the rules once you give the penalty for a foul in the area that was not an attempt to play the ball.
He needs WBs in order to get braver. He has previously stated as he is bedding in his philosophy, he will be more conservative with his wingbacks, picking fullbacks or more defensive minded players, as the players learn his system and the team gets confidence, he will be more adventurous and pick wingers for that role. Easier to teach fullbacks to attack then wingers to defend is what he has said. But we have seen glimpses of this already, prior to Amad's injury if we were playing weaker opposition Amad would play as RWB, if we were playing a tougher opposition then Dalot or Mazraoui would play RWB. He has gotten Dorgu now, who is still young and learning his role, and hopefully will either address the right through the transfer window this summer or integrating Mantato into the team next year, whilst also having Amad to play that role, if not playing as a 10. I would also expect to see Garnacho operating at LWB by next season, if Amorim is true to his word, which he seems to be.
There are count less times in every game when our passing either gets us into trouble or wastes a good opportunity. We’d improve so much if we can ever fix it.
I'm not sure Gyokeres is in that bracket, he might be, but he's playing in a league where I think it's a bit harder to judge. My point was there's not really anyone obvious out there, I think Osimhem, Gyokeres come with a decent amount of risk, it's not like we can get Isak or Haaland, so I wonder if they shelve the CF until next summer and see if options are better.
A bit of a left field option, but someone I think is quite underrated and has a lot of potential is Muniz at Fulham, good at finishing from everywhere and a handful for CBs yet is good in the build up as well. I would be more excited about him as a project than splashing £40-50m on someone who might be ok but ultimately gets replaced.
With 6 league wins along with his Europa league games, he's going to have to do a little more than that to get his critics (including me) to trust him.
Nevertheless and to state the obvious, winning the Europa would only be a good thing for him and the club. Not sure what we are actually going to do in the Champions League if we continue like this but you have to be in it to win it.
Very good result against Bilbao. Very happy for Amorim he really needed that. I think now we are in a slight bit dilemma here, on one hand i want us to try a highly technical formation for the last few matches of the season and the 2nd leg to allow us to be better prepared for the final on another hand playing these players and risking injury to any of the below players could be disastrous. Because truth be told, I am worried about Spurs and us losing 3 matches already against them is comical with the season they are having. I think the obvious reason is they have good goal scorers in their team, and our team is prone to giving away cheap passes and chances because of poor technical ability of some players losing ball in dangerous areas (Dorgu, Lindelof, Ugarte and Mount are players we should keep away in this tie as much as possible). But i believe if we start all of these attacking technical players, it will be too much for them and like Liverpool we could easily score plenty and then maybe can bring our defensive players and shut up shop.
I would love if we start these players for the final.
Onana
Amad De Ligt Maguire Yoro Shaw
Maino Casemiro
Garnacho Bruno
Hojlund
I would love if we start these players for the final.
Onana
Amad De Ligt Maguire Yoro Shaw
Maino Casemiro
Garnacho Bruno
Hojlund
Suspect Ugarte will start but Mainoo will sub on.
Mazraoui should start too.
I’ve actually completely missed this? Where/when did he say this?
This would make me looks very differently on what I perceive as very cowardly tactics (7 defensive players at home to very average teams).
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This isn’t how it was at all, he played Amad just 4 times there, but for the vast majority of games against any opposition he put Amad at 10 with a FB at WB.
Bournemouth, Wolves, Newcastle, Brighton, Leicester… all games with Amad in squad/team where we played two fullbacks at WB.
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Not a bad line up.
Feels like we’d be hanging Cas out to dry again there, Mainoo simply aint there yet and doesn’t have the legs required to play alongside Cas in CM.