Do you really need to question whether after 49 games if Amorim is a good manager, the stats don't lie. As for the rest who knows, but there must be plenty of managers who can do better with this squad which is top 6 at least. And the next manager will not win us the PL whoever it is, we are a long way from that. But they can develop the team and make us competitive again. I didn't get excited when we hired LVG, his best years were long gone and he was heading to retirement. Mourninho was just toxic and on the decline, and so it proved. ETH looked good in principle, with the caveat other teams had spoken to him including Spurs and said no. Amorim once I read about his rigid system I was convinced would fail. We have made a series of poor to OK managerial appointments. Other teams sack managers without getting hysterical about it.
Ruben Amorim | 2025-26
- Thread starter Cheimoon
- Start date
We shouldn't be looking for the next SAF, we just need a manager to do a respectable job at this point.
And yet they are pretty much all outperforming him. We have the lowest points per game of any pl team since he took over despite having a better squad. So the idea that we might not find someone better is hard to buy into. He is doing miles worse than any of his post fergie predecessors
The problem is that he has set the bar so low that almost anyone would be an improvement. Hell, I'd take Steve Bruce from Blackpool at this point. He would at least not have the side flirting with relegation.
Give Curbishley his first job after 15+ years? Fine
Rooney? Fine
Big Sam? Fine
I literally dont see how anyone without outlandish ideas could do a worse job.
Everyone can see it. EVERYONE. Apart from Amorim. Not even the Pope can change his mind...
The mad thing is that he's declaimed several times already that he won't change anything. This is the formation, these are the roles for the players, these are the specific parameters for the player's rotations and off the ball movement. And he has produced 1ppg. So what SJR and co are waiting for is basically a miracle. Which, given the fact that the managerial position at this club is being treated as something sacred, isn't all that odd. In this sense, of course, you can't see better candidates. Winning two consecutive matches and averaging more than 1ppg, as a starting point, is something to look down upon. The manager at United is all about "the bigger picture", "the long-term success", "the United Way" etc. We're so special that bad results, tactical failures and total stagnation are just trivialities to us. Just sell us a brighter future, this is all we want.
It's wild. We've spent real Madrid's level of money and wages to finish 15th and get done on the regular by Brighton and Brentford, and the managers always seem to escape any blame because of the "culture" or something
On point number 1, I don't think playing a 4-2-3-1 would transform us into title contenders but rather it's a system that looks like square pegs in square holes so we would improve considerably.
I agree with most of your other criticisms.
It'll only work if you have legs, and talent to boot. Otherwise it's completely nonsensical.
Everyone can see it. EVERYONE. Apart from Amorim. Not even the Pope can change his mind...
There are a lot of complexities in modern coaching, especially from system coaches, but at heart it remains fairly simple, as Rene explains. Get your players in the positions most suited to them, he also highlight at one point that 433 then creates the spare man in attack (as opposed to being a CB) and allows us to get more bodies in the box and also more freedom for Mbeumo, Bruno and Cunha to play their natural games. I think the obsession with Rubin's system has blinded himself, Ratcliffe and remaining fan boys to these basic realities.
This is why you need to boo the shit out of shit performances.
Chanting his name after a 3-0 defeat sends a very wrong message to the management
ETH got 85% keep poll after EL and he got a new season.
These sentiments are fans voices, use it well. Jim is a businessman. He would have dissected the fans mentality, some focus group probably and gauge our reactions
Chanting his name after a 3-0 defeat sends a very wrong message to the management
ETH got 85% keep poll after EL and he got a new season.
These sentiments are fans voices, use it well. Jim is a businessman. He would have dissected the fans mentality, some focus group probably and gauge our reactions
Everyone can see it. EVERYONE. Apart from Amorim. Not even the Pope can change his mind...
The whole fecking world sees that we would play Bruno to his strengths and give the team much better balance with that team but Amorim refuses to change the formation until we get a strong enough central midfield. Feels like we are in the fecking twillight zone, where United cannot be successful no matter who is the manager and wich group of players are here.
INEOS directors would rather lose more games than to lose face about appointing the wrong manager to the club.
Exactly, if there were sustained boos every week they would act but because we sing the manager's name that myth of infallible manager, and how we need to back them to the death, rises. Louis Van Gaal said how United fans were not dissatisfied because we were singing Louis Van Gaal's red army every week, despite the fact the majority were fed up of his toothless football. Amorim even said himself that our performances deserve the ire of fans not cheers. There is no shame in showing displeasure, it is normal but eating shite and smiling is odd.
It's part of the embedded culture it seems. I feel like it would only change if we were in a genuine relegation battle or the manager riled up the fans with some sort of comments, though I can't think of any examples of managers saying outrageous things to lose match going fans.
What's this about? The first season EL final? He wasn't on the hot seat after year one.
Can't be the second season as the club was in the CL, unless you meant the FAC win over City.
We would be better just as a base level in a 433. If he still wanted us to press high and dominate, yes we'd still struggle relatively to what we "should" be doing like we were under Ten Hag, but shit as in mid table is different to shit as in relegation candidates.
If you play the 343 pragmatically and focus on keeping things tight and playing on the counter rather than pressing high and possession, we would be far better than we are now. Likewise if we played a 4231/433 pragmatically, we would probably get the best out of what we have as we suit that.
4231/433 suits who we have more and purely formation should bring a minor improvement. The bigger change would come from do you ask them to play pragmatically on the counter or do you ask them to press high and focus on possession. That's where I think we can genuinely just be a steady top 5 side compared to a spiralling laughing stock of a team.
Bit different for them, their last manager had done a really impressive job and only self-sabotage led them down the Ange route. They never wanted him, so the boos and chants are probably for Maranakis' benefit as much as anything else.
Another press conference where he's just relentlessly defending his system... This guy is so clueless.
I’ve watched more tactical analysis from The Athletics latest video and the one from The Overlap and the system is flawed because players aren’t good enough, his stubbornness to see the forest through the trees. I admire it in a way, but tweak it a little. We can make it work but only if he is willing to make it work and I’m sure he is too, but just tweak it!
Im sure Ange will be fine once he has had a summer transfer window and a full pre-season with his own players
I really wish he would stop bringing up that game vs Arsenal as some shining light for the system
We still bloody lost it.
We still bloody lost it.
I mean Ange was a bad fit from the off, Forest was a defensive team and they’ve gone to the complete other end of the scale an gone with extreme attack, was never gonna work with that squad
The main advantage of having the extra man in a back three is that you can never be entirely sure which one is to blame when we conceed.
That press conference breeds zero confidence. As predicted.
Which weekends does it work? The one game a month that we win thanks to a penalty or red card?
Everyone can see it. EVERYONE. Apart from Amorim. Not even the Pope can change his mind...
It’s madness. Like you say, it’s a simple observation. How he can’t see that/doesn’t want to see that is wild.
He said Sunderland have a clear identity.
They bought about 10 players in the summer.
How come it has taken them a few months to develop a identity but not us?
Correction, 15 players signed.
They bought about 10 players in the summer.
How come it has taken them a few months to develop a identity but not us?
Correction, 15 players signed.
He is waiting for his pay off. He knows that he is out if his dept.
The entire stadium is going to turn on him this weekend I feel, if we don’t put in a top performance with this stupid system that he keeps harping on.
Why stop there?
What if we had prime R9 up front, or a younger Scholes and Keane in midfield?
The goalkeeper is a player on the team, like all the other ones. I don't get why it's the only position where poor performances are seen as mitigating factors to absolve the manager of blame for poor results.
Ah, that's a relief that it isn't the system's fault, thanks Ruben.
So why are we losing then? Easy thing to say when he won't ever try a different formation.
That'd be like me saying. ''I'm not saying I wouldn't lose weight if I changed my Diet, but the important thing is I know I'm not losing weight because of my current Diet.''
Which is why I think it’s disingenuous to claim “oh it’s Sunderland” - When they have a whole new team, starting fresh, it’s nowhere near the same team it was in the Champ (I could be speaking from ignorance here mind you)
But we have better players than Brentford, Grimsby, Fulham... So if it's not the system itself to blame, then it must be that he is not communicating it well enough for the players to understand it. Either the system is shit, or his coaching of the system is shit. Either way, it's on him.