Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach | Thread locked during matches

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

He was dropped for a single game and then did an interview saying he wanted to leave immediately afterward.

I’ve heard Amorim’s interviews, he didn’t think he could get Rashford to play or understand his football, he clearly told Rashford this prior to dropping him from the squad.

 

[Shark]

How about average points per game? percentage wins? goals scored? goals conceded? Pretty sure in every metric Amorim has done worse when compared to any post Sir Alex manager's worst season let alone Ten Hag's spell at the beginning of this season. How about comparing to Ole as he took over mid season as well no? You fire a manager because he is underperforming and you hire a replacement because you feel he will do a better job. This isn't complicated, we do not need to make excuses for Amorim, he himself knows he is doing an appaling job.

Think this is what makes the excuses even more peculiar. Ruben himself will tell you he's doing a shite job, and has alluded to it.

 

[Mmm-Qatarian]

What I'm not understanding is this mystical system that people think is suited to this squad.

Ten Hag apparently set the squad up to play in a way that suited the likes of Garnacho and Amad (who, by the way, he never used) and we were fecking garbage. Because we finished 8th last season I think people have this misconception that we were a lot better. Truth is, we were dead fecking lucky to be 8th and were completely under the cosh in the vast majority of our matches.

In my mind, we absolutely need to get away from "playing to the strengths of this squad" (i.e. being a chaotic counter-attacking side) because we've already tried that and it got us absolutely fecking nowhere. This summer should be about rebuilding the utter shite that Arnold, Murtough and Ten Hag left behind to whatever extent is possible.

 

[Leftback99]

To what end?
Agreed we need better players to return to the top 4/5
Disagree we need better players to see a better return in the league than we've seen by quite some margin.

The biggest difference to this team in my opinion would be 2 new starting forwards, a CM and a keeper. It would be the same in a 4-3-3.

 

[Raoul]

Top 4/5 was definitely attainable given the quality of the league this season. Not many standout teams due to parity. If we had a bit of new manager bounce we’d at least have a chance at qualifying for the Europa League or Conference places. We’ve literally seen none of that under Amorim, it’s been an absolute disgrace.

Fortunately, we're still in the running for what top 5 would bring us, and with the prospect of winning a significant trophy along the way.

 

[Mmm-Qatarian]

Think this is what makes the excuses even more peculiar. Ruben himself will tell you he's doing a shite job, and has alluded to it.

Nobody's claiming he's doing a great job. People are pointing out some important contextual factors that massively mitigate it, such as the rather obvious fact that he was left and absolute fecking garbage fire of a squad by his predecessor, he's had to contend with several major injury problems, and that he's trying (correctly) to implement a new style of play rather than reverting to "counter attack and pray" as his predecessor did. Factors that some people are agonizingly ready to completely ignore.

 

[RedRocket9908]

Which system fits our current squad?

There are managers out there with systems that'll fit our current squad better than the current one which has produce an abysmal return of only 6 wins from 24 games.

Bringing in someone with a system that fits and will get performances out of our current squad is a much safer option than gambling £200m on players for a system that has so far failed and a manager who has failed to get anything consistant out our current squad

 

[Teja]

While you admit this is spin. Amorim barely played Rashford and Antony. In fact he froze the former out completely. He was more than likely happy for both to be loaned out.

It's both right? Yes, the manager can't do well because he doesn't have a functioning attack but also I think people internally wrote off this season to do a bit of a squad reset and Ruben was also probably on board with this. Ratcliffe's recent comments about his highest wage players not being available at all, or Ruben playing with basically mid table waged players in attack suggests this.

Rashford is def not a good fit in Amorim's system and INEOS probably think his wage level is too high to be a fit for _any_ system and want to get rid. He's a 100-150k p/w player, not a 350k p/w player. The fact that we're even discussing Antony as an option suggests the loan was the right move for him and hopefully we make money off the sale.

Regardless, our "attack" for the season was Hojlund, Garnacho, Amad, Zirkzee and Bruno. We moved our best attacker (Bruno) deep for fairly long stretches / won't play him full 90 because of EL. And just as our second best attacker started hitting some semblance of form he got injured. I highly doubt any coach in the world could've done much better in these circumstances. Maybe they would've had 6-9 more points because they wouldn't be imposing a new system through all of this transition. Sit in a 4-2-3-1 midblock and counter is familiar to our players and would've fit players like Mainoo a bit better but I doubt anyone's finishing higher than 10th - 12th or so.

 

[Bobski]

What I'm not understanding is this mystical system that people think is suited to this squad.

Ten Hag apparently set the squad up to play in a way that suited the likes of Garnacho and Amad (who, by the way, he never used) and we were fecking garbage. Because we finished 8th last season I think people have this misconception that we were a lot better. Truth is, we were dead fecking lucky to be 8th and were completely under the cosh in the vast majority of our matches.

In my mind, we absolutely need to get away from "playing to the strengths of this squad" (i.e. being a chaotic counter-attacking side) because we've already tried that and it got us absolutely fecking nowhere. This summer should be about rebuilding the utter shite that Arnold, Murtough and Ten Hag left behind to whatever extent is possible.

And how much did Ten Hag's ludicrous no midfield set up have to do with this? Lets not pretend Utd were playing a standard 4-2-3-1 and that last seasons performances prove it is not suited to this group. The tactics last seasons were insane, Cas on his last legs asked to cover acres with the other 2 midfielders basically playing on top of the striker.

Ten Hags tactics suited no-one, Cas and the defense had impossible spaces to cover, the attack and defense had absurd spaces between them and the one tactic seemed to be hoof the ball over the top for the fast lads to chase.

 

[Raoul]

To play devils advocate here… Rashford had LVG, Mou, Ole, Ragnick, ETH and he ”wanted to be here” under all of them.

I don’t know the workings of Rashford nor Amorim’s brain here but Amorim clearly froze him out and gave him not much choice but to find a new club.

Antony was barely given a chance.

It’s a tough one to have a tonne of sympathy for the manager to be honest, loaning Antony I thought especially was a daft idea.

I’ll give Amorim credit for getting rid of players once Amorim (hopefully) shows me he was right and that his team is better for it.

Suspect both were viewed as not training hard enough and/or exhibited negative/toxic attitudes in training and the dressing room, which was never going to be tolerated by Amorim. Ratcliffe even publicly said he supported what Amorim did with Rashford, so whatever background information was available to them, it was bad enough to abruptly get rid of him. Both Rashford and Antony can obviously be exciting players when in form, but one wouldn't be surprised to hear they weren't the best trainers. Same applies to Sancho.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Suspect both were viewed as not training hard enough and/or exhibited negative/toxic attitudes, which was never going to be tolerated by Amorim. Ratcliffe even publicly said he supported what Amorim did with Rashford, so whatever background information was available to them, it was bad enough to abruptly get rid of him. Both Rashford and Antony can obviously be exciting players when in form, but one wouldn't be surprised to hear they weren't the best trainers. Same applies to Sancho.

I’d be extremely surprised with Antony. One of the hardest working wingers I’ve seen, and appears loved by all at Betis now.

Would be shocked to find he has a crap attitude to training.

 

[Mmm-Qatarian]

And how much did Ten Hag's ludicrous no midfield set up have to do with this? Lets not pretend Utd were playing a standard 4-2-3-1 and that last seasons performances prove it is not suited to this group. The tactics last seasons were insane, Cas on his last legs asked to cover acres with the other 2 midfielders basically playing on top of the striker.

Ten Hags tactics suited no-one, Cas and the defense had impossible spaces to cover, the attack and defense had absurd spaces between them and the one tactic seemed to be hoof the ball over the top for the fast lads to chase.

But this is precisely my fecking point! Amorim had to take over mid-season from a squad that had been assembled with essentially no strategic end game in mind, and people are surprised that with one player added to that squad we're still not in great shape!

I honestly just think people struggle to comprehend quite how insane the decision-making was under Arnold, Murtough and Ten Hag. It isn't something I'd expect any manager to come in and fix given three quarters of a season and no summer transfer window.

 

[Leftback99]

There are managers out there with systems that'll fit our current squad better than the current one which has produce an abysmal return of only 6 wins from 24 games.

Bringing in someone with a system that fits and will get performances out of our current squad is a much safer option than gambling £200m on players for a system that has so far failed and a manager who has failed to get anything consistant out our current squad

Our squad (or more our first 11-14) is midtable quality. Our forward line is bottom half. No manager get's away from that.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Our forward line is bottom half.

You keep repeating this and I think it’s horrendously harsh on Garna, Amad and Bruno.

These are 3 players we should all feel extremely lucky to have.

 

[tomaldinho1]

What I'm not understanding is this mystical system that people think is suited to this squad.

Ten Hag apparently set the squad up to play in a way that suited the likes of Garnacho and Amad (who, by the way, he never used) and we were fecking garbage. Because we finished 8th last season I think people have this misconception that we were a lot better. Truth is, we were dead fecking lucky to be 8th and were completely under the cosh in the vast majority of our matches.

In my mind, we absolutely need to get away from "playing to the strengths of this squad" (i.e. being a chaotic counter-attacking side) because we've already tried that and it got us absolutely fecking nowhere. This summer should be about rebuilding the utter shite that Arnold, Murtough and Ten Hag left behind to whatever extent is possible.

How is something a myth when you can just look at other teams doing it? We suit direct, more aggressive play, I think most people agree on that - that doesn't mean every single team that wants to press and be direct all play the same way?

ETH was too extreme, and also he had not coached that style before, he basically (this is my take not something he specifically said) knew the forwards were young/inconsistent and decided we would be far more open and risk taking in order to score. In knock out games we tightened it up and played more sensibly, in the league we went full midfield press. We lost most of our defence for a prolonged period and managed 8th and an FA cup in what many think of as one of our worst seasons.

All our managers have been 'close' to the final step until now, LVG, Jose, Ole, ETH have all got the team finishing 2nd-4th - what every coach has lacked to a degree is the ability to coach a strong press. The basic setup and ability to counter was never an issue with everyone after LVG though we tended to be bottom/close to bottom of the league for most of the stats that used to get published for PDA, we then scored quite high some with ETH second season but at a huge cost to everything else. That is what all the best teams do, regardless of if they want to keep the ball or not, they can all force multiple chances from turnovers in dangerous areas and do what everyone does to us, stopping us playing out from the back.

 

[hellhunter]

Our squad (or more our first 11-14) is midtable quality. Our forward line is bottom half. No manager get's away from that.

And yet our very much failing manager last season did

 

[RedRocket9908]

Our squad (or more our first 11-14) is midtable quality. Our forward line is bottom half. No manager get's away from that.

Our squad is not midtable quality, it is at least good enough to get in the top 7

 

[Bobski]

But this is precisely my fecking point! Amorim had to take over mid-season from a squad that had been assembled with essentially no strategic end game in mind, and people are surprised that with one player added to that squad we're still not in great shape!

I honestly just think people struggle to comprehend quite how insane the decision-making was under Arnold, Murtough and Ten Hag. It isn't something I'd expect any manager to come in and fix given three quarters of a season and no summer transfer window.

Yes this season was guaranteed to be a disaster, but I also have some sympathy with the players. We get the usual "this squad is letting another manager down" which ignores the massive turnover in the playing staff and the reality of them having 2 years of Ten Hag (it was going downhill quickly after the league cup win) hanging them out to dry with unworkable tactics and then being thrust into a system they have little familiarity with and inevitably makes them look worse than they are.

 

[Raoul]

I’d be extremely surprised with Antony. One of the hardest working wingers I’ve seen, and appears loved by all at Betis now.

Would be shocked to find he has a crap attitude to training.

Although not explicitly named, suspect Antony was subject to the same as Rashford.

 

[Leftback99]

And yet our very much failing manager last season did

How did he?

Ignoring that he put this dross together for £600m.

 

[Raoul]

If we don't win the Europa league, should we actually sack him? i don't think we will, but when you look at how bad this formation does in the PL....

I don't think Ratcliffe and Berada are quite that shortsighted. This year will be viewed as a write off and next year will be the first full year of his evaluation, inclusive of a full summer window of transfers, training, and preparation.

 

[Mmm-Qatarian]

Yes this season was guaranteed to be a disaster, but I also have some sympathy with the players. We get the usual "this squad is letting another manager down" which ignores the massive turnover in the playing staff and the reality of them having 2 years of Ten Hag (it was going downhill quickly after the league cup win) hanging them out to dry with unworkable tactics and then being thrust into a system they have little familiarity with and inevitably makes them look worse than they are.

Oh, I quite agree with you on that front.

A lot of it is that players were signed for fees far, far in advance of their true value and then burdened with expectations that went way beyond what would have been reasonable given their careers before we signed them. Hojlund is a prime example of this.

 

[RedRocket9908]

And yet our very much failing manager last season did

Exactly, ETH had a weaker squad last season than what we have now and managed to finish 8th despite having to deal with a huge amount of player injuries throughout the season.

 

[Herschel Krustofsky]

Emery had proven nothing in the PL when he took over at Villa. He was a good Europa league manager who was sacked early on when he last tried to manage a PL team. Or, as you might say, “brutally exposed”.

Think you're being unnecessarily mediocre here and using facts. You won't get anywhere with facts.

 

[NotChatGPT]

To play devils advocate here… Rashford had LVG, Mou, Ole, Ragnick, ETH and he ”wanted to be here” under all of them.

I don’t know the workings of Rashford nor Amorim’s brain here but Amorim clearly froze him out and gave him not much choice but to find a new club.

Antony was barely given a chance.

It’s a tough one to have a tonne of sympathy for the manager to be honest, loaning Antony I thought especially was a daft idea.

I’ll give Amorim credit for getting rid of players once Amorim (hopefully) shows me he was right and that his team is better for it.

Rashford had performance issues under Ole, Rangnick and ETH. His mint seasons under Mourinho, Ole, Eth and being a local talent obviously gave him plenty of credit in the bank and made him a player we'd want to hold on to as long as possible, not to mention the marketing reasons. New owners, new sporting focuses, new manager. not having played well for a very long period of time, getting older = less room to get away with shit. There's no indication that Amorim wasn't perfectly happy to give everyone in the squad a fair chance to prove themselves, but it's up to the players how they handle themselves.

Not sure why loaning Antony out was a daft idea either. He wasn't performing well at all and imo pretty much everything points in the direction that he's not suited to the physicality and tempo of the league. Best bet was always to loan him out to a different league and hope that he shows enough to attract clubs for a permanent move in the summer.

 

[flameinthesun]

But this is precisely my fecking point! Amorim had to take over mid-season from a squad that had been assembled with essentially no strategic end game in mind, and people are surprised that with one player added to that squad we're still not in great shape!

I honestly just think people struggle to comprehend quite how insane the decision-making was under Arnold, Murtough and Ten Hag. It isn't something I'd expect any manager to come in and fix given three quarters of a season and no summer transfer window.

I don't think there is a struggle to comprehend for most posters, I think that's just an easy way of saying that they don't understand your point. Most do, they just don't think its as drastic as you are making it out to be. When Ten Hag was hired he was left a "garbage squad". This was on the back of Ragnick saying the squad needed open heart surgery. 1 season later, the players were deemed not as bad as we thought after getting 3rd and a cup. Get a competent manager in, this squad won't be top 4, but it will be a hell of a lot more competitive than what Amorim is showing. And this is where the real disconnect is between yourself and those pushing a similar argument. Amorim hasn't been left a great squad to work with, everybody knows that. However, he hasn't been left a squad that should be 2 points away from 17th. That is just some defeatist, feeble, non United thinking. If the squad is top half quality which it is, he should finish top half not given excuses to finish 17th. Its like saying Rasmus has not hope of winning the golden boot so don't worry about how many goals he's scores. If anything, we spent large parts of last season with a worse squad due to the amount of injuries we had.

And these are the points that those who are disregarding Amorim's poor perfomance aren't able to answer.
- If you fire a manager because he has been underperformed in his start to a season, you do so because you expect the following manager to perform better. He hasn't.
- If you need time for the players to get used to a formation, more than half a season of playing and training (of which the excuse of not having time to train has suddenly dissappeared) should be more than sufficient to show progress of which there is not
- if the idea is that he needs the pre-season to get them used to it then it makes it even more silly to hire him mid season, also brings into doubt what he will be able to do in pre-season as he has had more than half season already with the squad
- If its that he needs new players, he got in Dorgu who has made no noticeable difference to our performances

No matter what you look at, its just poor all round from Amorim in almost every metric and with all the allowances of the Sale to Ineos, being left Ten Hag's squad etc, even with those allowances he shouldn't be doing as poorly as he is doing, and again, even Amorim would admit that.

 

[stevoc]

Ok got it.

I actually rate that Ineos didn't fold and let Tuchel get more control (if that was true), the issue I now have it seems from the outside that Berrada has now just decided he will run the ship and so, even though he's surely much more clued up than Woody, we're back to the single point of failure again. I think they just had no other options that Berrada liked, as Frank and Howe were linked strongly through Ashworth as builders i.e. maybe not the sexiest names but people who had built small/poorly funded clubs through developing players.

Agreed and going forward I'd hope we bring an experienced DOF in because as you say it does seem like Berrada is taking a bit too much responsibility on.

It's sad he joined mid season, I remember making this point to someone back in Nov, the issue Amorim will have (though I had no idea it would be this bad) is that once you start to lose games the perception changes and I'm not sure anyone has ever really shaken that off in modern football. Already his future is discussed in the mainstream media, already people are saying ' by now' we should see more etc. Once the media went for Ole they did not stop, same for ETH, same for all of them. if he can shake that off and almost start afresh next season , it will be a miracle.

It'll be a massive task for sure. I'm still of the opinion that a shorter term appointment to right the ship this season before going for a longer term option down the line might have had some merit.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

To play devils advocate here… Rashford had LVG, Mou, Ole, Ragnick, ETH and he ”wanted to be here” under all of them.

I don’t know the workings of Rashford nor Amorim’s brain here but Amorim clearly froze him out and gave him not much choice but to find a new club.

Antony was barely given a chance.

It’s a tough one to have a tonne of sympathy for the manager to be honest, loaning Antony I thought especially was a daft idea.

I’ll give Amorim credit for getting rid of players once Amorim (hopefully) shows me he was right and that his team is better for it.

He had a funny way of showing it…

 

[Dosse]

I can hardly wait to see what Amorim and his team can achieve with a full pre-season. On top of that, we've brought in new people at every level - especially when it comes to what, who, and how we recruit players. If we actually manage to qualify for the Champions League, it will give us even more freedom in the market. There's still life in this devil. Rival fans and teams are probably, deep down, a bit nervous at the thought of Manchester United slowly but surely coming back to life. I'm excited for what's to come with Amorim!

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Although not explicitly named, suspect Antony was subject to the same as Rashford.

Weird stretch there pal

 

[Mike Smalling]

Exactly, ETH managed had a weaker squad last season than what we have now and managed to finish 8th despite having to deal with a huge amount of player injuries throughout the season.

ETH rode his luck last season. We easily could have had at least 10 points fewer based on the performances. And let's not forget what he did with this supposedly stronger squad this season. There was a reason he was sacked.

 

[stevoc]

What I'm not understanding is this mystical system that people think is suited to this squad.

Ten Hag apparently set the squad up to play in a way that suited the likes of Garnacho and Amad (who, by the way, he never used) and we were fecking garbage. Because we finished 8th last season I think people have this misconception that we were a lot better. Truth is, we were dead fecking lucky to be 8th and were completely under the cosh in the vast majority of our matches.

In my mind, we absolutely need to get away from "playing to the strengths of this squad" (i.e. being a chaotic counter-attacking side) because we've already tried that and it got us absolutely fecking nowhere. This summer should be about rebuilding the utter shite that Arnold, Murtough and Ten Hag left behind to whatever extent is possible.

Ten Hag set this team up to suit absolutely no one, his vision of how we should play was batshit. And wouldn't have worked regardless of the personnel available. We were lucky to finish 8th last season because Ten Hags football left us so open that we were getting obliterated with shots every game. The only thing that saved us and kept clocking up points was the individual quality of the players popping up with goals to rescue draws and wins.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Exactly, ETH managed had a weaker squad last season than what we have now and managed to finish 8th despite having to deal with a huge amount of player injuries throughout the season.

He did? Take away McTominay’s goals and last season would have ended very differently. Which became abundantly clear in the first half of this season.

That’s what’s so insane about the notion that ETH improved our squad from last season to this one. We know he didn’t because we got to watch this season’s squad under last season’s manager. And it was an absolute fecking disaster.

 

[Dec9003]

We need better players for any formation so it doesn't really matter. I've seen this lot in a 4-3-3, they were dreadful.

When? Ten Hag played a 4-2-4 in possession after his first season, it was a major issue and was highlighted at the time.
Having a shape that suits your players is a massive thing in football, players like Amad shouldn’t be doing shifts at wing back really, he should be in advanced positions making positive things happen.

 

[stevoc]

It's both right? Yes, the manager can't do well because he doesn't have a functioning attack but also I think people internally wrote off this season to do a bit of a squad reset and Ruben was also probably on board with this. Ratcliffe's recent comments about his highest wage players not being available at all, or Ruben playing with basically mid table waged players in attack suggests this.

Quite possible yes.

Rashford is def not a good fit in Amorim's system and INEOS probably think his wage level is too high to be a fit for _any_ system and want to get rid. He's a 100-150k p/w player, not a 350k p/w player. The fact that we're even discussing Antony as an option suggests the loan was the right move for him and hopefully we make money off the sale.


Regardless, our "attack" for the season was Hojlund, Garnacho, Amad, Zirkzee and Bruno. We moved our best attacker (Bruno) deep for fairly long stretches / won't play him full 90 because of EL. And just as our second best attacker started hitting some semblance of form he got injured. I highly doubt any coach in the world could've done much better in these circumstances. Maybe they would've had 6-9 more points because they wouldn't be imposing a new system through all of this transition. Sit in a 4-2-3-1 midblock and counter is familiar to our players and would've fit players like Mainoo a bit better but I doubt anyone's finishing higher than 10th - 12th or so.

Now I'm all for giving Amorim more time. But I think that's a dangerous line of thinking because it excuses just how bad we've been. I reckon privately neither the club nor Amorim himself would have expected things to be this bad regardless of what was said in early press conferences to set expectations.

 

[Raoul]

Weird stretch there pal

A stretch ? He's applying his comments to all players.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

A stretch ? He's applying his comments to all players.

So anyone not playing then was a bad trainer?

Yeah, that’s a stretch.

Didn’t he actually remove Rashy from his squad and say he’d prefer to play his GK coach when saying all this?

 

[Raoul]

So anyone not playing then was a bad trainer?

Yeah, that’s a stretch.

Didn’t he actually remove Rashy from his squad and say he’d prefer to play his GK coach when saying all this?

Did you watch the video ? He says exactly that towards the end.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Did you watch the video ? He says exactly that towards the end.

Exactly what?

That Antony was in his squads right up until his departure and getting some decent minutes? Subbed on for 46 good minutes v Southampton and started the following week v Brighton, before the departing to Betis.
Doesn’t really ring true with Amorim’s words about how he treats those who have bad attitudes to training.

You are massively stretching.

 

[erikcred]

He did? Take away McTominay’s goals and last season would have ended very differently. Which became abundantly clear in the first half of this season.

That’s what’s so insane about the notion that ETH improved our squad from last season to this one. We know he didn’t because we got to watch this season’s squad under last season’s manager. And it was an absolute fecking disaster.

I mean, if you take away goals from any team it would make for worse outcomes? Take away just a couple of goals like that Maguire Lyon goal and this season looks very different for Amorim too and that's saying something.