This came up on my feed a few moments ago from R/Gunners of all places.
Looks like Arsenal fans are delighted with their leaderships choice to stick with their manager back in 2020 when Arteta was building and under pressure.
Tim Cahill really on the money.
Roy Keane sounding like a lot of United legends are now to be honest “How many losses, How many losses”. It's eerily similar. Blindly unable to see the progress he was making.
I'm not a fan of this decision and think the leadership have a lot to answer for. They hired Amorim for his attacking football at Sporting with the wing backs performing like wingers, and the team filled with youth from their academy and have changed their mind 18 months in after a bust up. I'd like to know why exactly they changed their position, probably won't get that much detail. It wasn't performance as he was meeting his objective of Europe. We'll have the full story soon but it's a red flag for me anyways towards Ineos for now.
I'll back whoever takes over, I'm not a manager FC/Player FC kind of person but I do feel we've halted something here.
Let's hope we can finally give a manager the time it takes and full support to complete a rebuild because there's no shortcuts.
No wonder the new stadium design looks like a circus, the club and the fans are really clowns if they think Amorim is the real problem.
I’m gonna say it once again. We will continue to get the same results by only changing the manager while keeping incompetent people in the club.
In the social media era, people with power and money pay the media or somebody to steer the narrative into what they want. This is what is happening around us. That’s why we get so much negativity about our manager.
The board was already preparing to fire the manager before the last interview. They even already had a name for the interim manager a week ago. This is the truth the higher-ups are trying to hide.
I mean.. he wasn’t the solution either
Unless the manager has the funds to buy the team, no manager will be the solution.
United are buying big name players every year. We just brought in Mbeumo, Cunha, Sesko - an absolutely massive window. Yes, a midfielder or two is really needed, but the squad that's there is good.
He didn't got sacked because of the result
He wouldn’t have got sacked if his results had been good enough.
He would their egos couldnt handle the last press conference
Did you miss the boo's ringing around Old Trafford multiple times this season?
Nah, if you’re actually winning some games now and then none of that happens. Not the reticence to invest in the project, not the media questioning, not the discord with the board, and not his statement after the Leeds game. If you win games, you keep your job. His results weren’t good enough and the press conference was the eventual fallout.
If they listened from the start and got an striker that amorin wanted we would maybe be in that position dont u think? But no they go do a hojlundv2
No, I don’t think we would. The striker wasn’t the only part missing from this squad to make his vision a reality, which is why he said it would cost a lot to do it. Goals haven’t been our problem for most of this year.
The problem was playing people out of position and excluding some of our best players from before he joined for the sake of a system that never remotely looked like it had an advantage over a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 or 4-1-2-3 - all of which do fit our best players in.
I’m not sure how people have been brainwashed into thinking 3 at the back would eventually be a cheat code to success.
Sesko has been way under par, but the team has much bigger issues than that. You can’t come in as a manger and say “I’m going to play like this, but it’s going to be shit unless we spend a ridiculous amount of money.” No other manager gets that grace, and he was given a bigger spend than many can dream of in one window. If you’re a good manager, you make what you have work to some degree.
Yeah but the truth is a better striker saves a game or 2 and we in front of Chelsea and liverpool no need to wriite 4 paragraphs
The truth is he had a 31.9% win percentage so he got fired. There - nice and short.
At the end of the day, we will not win the title with this ownership. We will be back in this cycle after 1 or 2 season with the new manager.
Yes. If they got an experienced striker they win the last two games at least.
Oh my fucking god it's still happening, please stop
Was he the biggest problem though? He came in midseason and the club and the fanbase basically understood that the first 6 months were free for Amorim. The board interviewed him and were okay with him sticking to his system throughout.
So based on this first full season (or half of one), from the outside looking in (Arsenal fan btw) I dont see a ton to sack him for outside of the boring playstyle he provided. He had embarrassing losses and triumphant wins with basically no consistency and while I thought its a step under what Arteta would provide us I could definitely recognize his process.
This time around the board lost their minds and sacked him because of his comments but what theyve seen is what theyve asked for. Im also thinking that this all happened because they then did a 180 under pressure and asked Amorim to change tactical. His plan was on course. They seem so inept. How can they change their minds so quickly?
Is there a problem where these voices (Keane, Neville, Scholes, Rio, etc.) have too much strength too? How has Amorim gotten so much pressure sooooo early I'll never get. Didn't the fanbase understand you were in the tranches?
Good news is technically the buys were to fit the vision or whatever the management had so changing the coach doesnt veer that but thats just so much money thrown out the window and so much more time to go back to course. So so impatient.
Ruben had a temper problem. It's okay if it's directed in the right way.
It showed that he cared!
Feet up looking bored watching us is caring?
Well, some managers managed to win trophies, and be in the top 2 of the Premier League. So obviously, there is a difference between a good manager and and a not very good manager, even if the structure around the manager is poor, incompetent or what have you. We've had managers winning the Europa League and finishing runner up in the Premier League with Ed fuclking Woodward as head of EVERYTHING at United.
Clearly the club needs to be better at fall fronts. But Amorim was just not good enough.
Keane is such an asshole. Won’t listen to anybody. Will bark like a dog.
ManUtd is a clown show. Complained about EtH saying, “what is even their identity or style of play”. And then cried about Amorim sticking to his identity and style of play.
I don’t know if Amorim would’ve worked out long term or not but he took over a team that wasn’t balanced nor was it coached well. It was going to take time to instill a way of playing and an identity.
That is why he insisted on taking over in the summer. But they gave him an ultimatum and everybody ended up beating the drum about the win %. This season for me was an improvement. Yes it was up and down but it takes time.
They need to commit to a plan. They never do. Not a serious club and I doubt if a serious sought after manager would come.
Said a few days ago that this season is night and day to last. Can actually see a game plan and structure, yes it's not pretty and questionable some matches, but these clowns crying over him being stubborn with a system are the same clowns who complained ETH had no style of play or system.
We suddenly get a coach committed to a way of playing which is proven to work, don't support him enough with transfers, complain about being 6th in the prem, lose our 4 best players to Afcon + injuries, and are upset over a couple of draws.
Amorim can only be blamed so much. He wasn't responsible for Bruno missing 2 pens, which would have given us 3 more points this season. Amorim isn't responsible for players missing sitters or making mistakes.
Not saying Amorim would work out, cause we should have waited at least to the end of this season.
Awful decision, wasted our season, and back to square 1. Literally makes no sense to sack him now rather than wait until May
Perfect post.
This is what I'm getting at with the post.
Ruben might not have been the man but he wasn't backed or given enough time.
Can't keep doing this.
Point is,
Underlying metrics this season were positive.
They were always worse under Ten Hag.
Yes, last season was bad and Ten Hag's tenure started that collapse (8th the previous season with expected performance of 13th). We also got rid of Rashford/Antony from an already depleted forward line with no replacements, there's context.
This season viewed in isolation shows a better resilience and far better attacking metrics. Players still on board, no heads dropped, etc.
18 months won't be enough for any manager. We're simply too far behind the long term projects of Arsenal and City who've built steadily and consistently.
Club have a lot to answer for and need to get this right. It's not good enough from them.
https://preview.redd.it/5pwbswn0cmbg1.jpeg?width=3351&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44f058559bad7bf16216ff120a2cf7b49e4bb85c
Troubling thing is that whilst we are better going forward we have a practically 1:1 ratio for goals for and goals against.
Even with 5 at the back it still feels like the defensive shape / positions we take up are horrendous and we can just as easily allow 4 in as we can score 4.
The fact we’ve only kept 1 clean sheet in the league and for the first time ever have failed to keep an away clean sheet in 15 games is wild.
And it’s not as though it’s purely down to AFCON or injuries, we have had this issue all season.
To me this is what really hampered Amorim, if we were getting 1-0’s over the wolves, 10 man Everton’s, bournemouths and West Ham’s people may have small gripes of “I want to see us really dominate these teams” but naturally that may take time and further squad planning.
The fact is that against some of the worst teams the leagues ever seen or even a fourth tier side he didn’t find a way to have high chance creation and a solid (not even asking for spectacular) defensive set up that could keep a handful of clean sheets.
We concede cause our midfield consists of an ancient Casemiro and our aging club talisman playing out of position. Our defense is ironically pretty good but we would need the likes of Martinez, Delight, Maguire, Maz etc all fit at once.
Soon as Case gasses or mistimes something we're fucked. We've had this issue for years, remember the Carrick&Schwienstieger midfield vs Arsenal?
Remember Case at Selhurst Park. My god.
Our attack was woeful and he fixed that with signings. Our keeper was a train wreck. He fixed it with a signing. How many midfielders did Ruben get to sign? He has to rely on a geriatric to run all over the midfield in the prem.
I agree with that in parts.
But you're never going to fix that in one summer window.
We've improved the attack.
Now let's improve the midfield and defense, stop leaking goals.
We know Casemiro/Ugarte aren't good enough to be playing weekly. We needed a new midfielder badly.
You don't fix every aspect of the team in one window. It's fantasy.
I agree totally with you but I said it to another commenter here there’s a difference between a shaky midfield and defence and horrendous one, I think that the issue with Amorims midfield and defence is the positions he asks them to take up and it would be difficult for a prime Kante and Makelele to deal with
he didn’t get a midfield but he did get 250 million on a wingback and new front line and is it too much for us to ask that he at least got a 50% win rate against a 10 man Everton, worst team in history wolves, no wins in 10 Bournemouth, no wins in 8 West Ham all at home?
We have kept 1 clean sheet the entire season and it was the lone game we didn’t play his system and we didn’t have Bruno. Literally every other time we deployed his system we failed to keep a clean sheet and that is extremely worrying as it means the system either requires a perfect squad or he isn’t teaching it to the current one in a way that can even scrape the occasional clean sheet.
I was not an Amorim out person but I could feel the way the wind was blowing, any manager saying “give me 3 summers and I’ll win” is mental to think they’ll get that without getting results and he wasn’t getting them and was flagging up concerning matches such as the Grimsby result.
Players the board 100% will escape blame and snake their way out of it as they always do but I felt like pulling my hair out when for the fourth week in a row results around the grounds went our way and we failed to maximise the opportunity.
Taking the “easy” points while others were struggling would have got him through the January window, put pressure on the board and also laid a foundation for when we went through a rough patch.
All he needed to do was find a way to put another body into midfield for this stretch and make us more sound, get more results like the Newcastle one, be a manager not a rigid philosophy coach.
But he didn’t and it allowed the pressure to build and gave the ones around him an easy out to make him the fall guy.
Surely you're not including a 20 (at the time) year old Dorgu as a signing to say he was backed?
The main issue with our players is that they don't fit the system, and Amorim told the board this before he arrived. When he had Dorgu + Amad playing our attack functioned, when we didn't, it didn't. If you don't have depth in the prem you're fucked.
Midfield has been a joke for as long as I can remember, we've come close a few times (Matic/Pogba, Herrera), but we've never had a truly mobile CDM which pretty much every modern formation requires.
We all knew the shortcomings in the squad, we all knew how Amorim wanted to play, quelle surprise that when we're missing half the squad we struggled to get wins.
What body? We had Casemiro/Ugarte available, plus youth players, plus a shoe horned Lisandro, he tried all of these combinations. In possession we were pretty much playing 4-3-3 anyway, and in defence 5-4-1. We simply don't have the squad depth.
A 20 year old who’s promising isn’t the same as us going out and buying hakimi or mendes but it’s still 30 million spent on a player that we believe has the potential to be our player for years to come and suits the profile Amorim wants so I do think it counts as being backed.
It also falls within the philosophy of what I think was a core criticism many had of the club for years that we didn’t have a footballing structure and instead allowed managers to pick who they wanted, we binned the managers, then we had a Frankenstein squad that was a mess.
We could say by the same logic Yoro doesn’t count as a signing because of his age, nevermind the fact he’s played a lot of games, was wanted by Madrid and cost us £55m.
I’m not dropping Diego Leon’s name in and saying Amorim was backed, if we spend £30m on a player who’s playing week in week out and by all metrics is one of the most promising players in the position then yes to me that’s us backing you especially as we’d like to think you can showcase an ability to make players like this better.
I’d be very concerned if he said he exclusively needs 100% proven entities like cunha and mbeumo, not only because this is going to be shockingly expensive but because it means he doesn’t want to develop someone.
The extra body in midfield I mean the positions the others take up, we played case and Ugarte in the Newcastle game, I don’t know if you had a chance to look at the heat and passing maps on the link I sent but we had 6 players within the spacing of the centre circle that looked to be taking on a two banks, one consisting of a pressing compact 4 the other the double pivot of case and Ugarte that created a compact and shelter centre of the pitch.
Against Leeds we only had 3 (4 if we include sesko but that would be generous as he’s very high in the positioning and looks to be more of an outlet as opposed to midfield body) and Casemiro and Ugarte are sitting on top of each other playing vertical not splitting the space.
This is naturally create more space for the opposition, overloads for them, more opportune wins of 50/50’s, and stifle our options playing out as there’s no numerical advantage in this space.
Again this is just how I feel the games go.
I think this is why the wolves vs Newcastle game serves as such a stark comparison, particularly before Mount came off when we looked at the shape he assigned the team the compact nature of adding more to the middle seemed to counter our midfields issue of being older and poorer on the ball than we’d like.
He changed it and we saw the other formation, despite not being the one he actively works on week in week out with the players, worked better for the current squad.
My argument is simply that if he had done similar tweaks and had a flatter pivot with more bodies helping them out he would’ve gotten better results, that he could have said “this isn’t my system but I’m managing based on what k have” then in the summer go and get a baleba and Anderson and play your 343
Many teams have struggled to break Wolves down. Arsenal needed 2 own goals. Liverpool barely got through them.
There were issues with the squad that were being addressed. It was a slow process.
I agree but the issue with us is that this has been a consistent issue under Amorim that it felt like he either wasn’t addressing or wasn’t able to address.
It’s not a common occurrence for Arsenal, they are unbelievable defensively sound, have kept 9 clean sheets, scoring 40 and only conceding 14.
Liverpool have had their worst start in 72 years but get the benefit of the doubt for having won the league and even with a historically poor start they are now 4th and have won 3 of their last 5.
Amorim’s best ever streak was 3 wins in a row and his win rate was decreasing as time went on.
Yes we’re 3 off 4th but equally we are 3 off 12th.
He needed to give us something we could back.
A great example is Glasner at palace, when he criticised the board he was unanimously backed for doing so as they weren’t backing him and were gutting the squad yet he was still winning trophies and getting results, he had something to go against the board with.
With Amorim it was hard to defend him, yes he didn’t get a midfield but he did get 250 million on a wingback and new front line and is it too much for us to ask that he at least got a 50% win rate against a 10 man Everton, worst team in history wolves, no wins in 10 Bournemouth, no wins in 8 West Ham all at home?
To me it’s scandalous to suggest we couldn’t have gotten more than 3 points from that run.
And what was really upsetting was that the performances didn’t feel great either, we couldn’t see a diamond in the rough that enabled us to say “okay I can see what will come out of this”.
Wolves had 1 forward and we played 5 at the back, that is just crazy to me, coupled with the substitution choices he made such as taking zirkzee off it felt like he failed constantly to maximise our strengths and minimise our weaknesses.
I can fully back a slow process but based on these results Amorim allowed fear to creep into the board and raise question marks over further investment.
If we’d won those games or even managed to win the majority of them he would be going into January comfortably in the champions league positions and then when he said “I need a midfield to get better” it would be hard to argue that fact.
We consistently had games where other results went our way and the opportunity to seize ground presented itself in easy games and he consistently failed to take advantage of that opportunity.
He is not entirely to blame but he did not maximise the chances when they were there for him to do so.
He would have eventually figured out the defensive side.
Oh I don’t want to make it come across like I’m doubting him or that the system couldn’t work eventually.
The point I think im trying to make is you have to survive more than anything, and you can survive by showing a vision or by getting points (ideally both) and with his 3-4-3 we were seeing that we can create chances but also that the system wasn’t capable of defending or controlling a game after more than a year in place which naturally leads to the question of “if the systems so great why’s it not lucked into a clean sheet and what if it’s inherently flawed and we’ll be doubling down on a mistake by buying specialised players for it”.
He didn’t give us a handful of games we could point to and say “we were defensively sound, controlled the game and scored well worked goals”.
The opposite was true, we looked to be generating poorer and poorer performances.
Based on that I think he should have pivoted to getting a few ugly wins during this easier stretch of games at home to put pressure on the board or at the least give him some grace for when tougher away fixtures come up.
The key word is “eventually” and I don’t think he managed the team in a way that enabled him to survive or put pressure on the board for signings.
He put out too many uninspired performances that sowed doubt about his own ability and the system.
While I agree with a lot of your points I completely disagree that he hadn’t given us control in games . We restricted opponents to minimal chances quite frequently and never felt massively under pressure either . We didn’t take very decent chances and individual errors/lazy marking cost us a lot. The games against Leeds, West Ham, Palace away and the draw with wolves stand out in my mind. In each of those games we had plenty of chances, didn’t put games to bed and gave up next to no opportunities on our goal. Palace game, yoro mistake on the pen West Ham game, amad lazy on the corner not getting goal side Wolves game again Amad not getting back in and leaving his man open on the back post Leeds, the heaven mistake for their goal other than that all they had was the most inform striker in the league hitting the post with a header. If creating multiple chances a game that should more often than not be taken, and restricting teams to next to nothing isn’t control, then what is??
God mate I feel like I totally see a different side to it. I 100% agree that we create a lot of chances and if anything a lot of players poor finishing has let Amorim down something shocking and I think had we more clinical players the narrative would be that we are just blitzing teams and next summer the defence needs addressed (I.e. midfield protection).
But I don’t think we had control of games and I constantly felt like we were penned in and under pressure in a lot of games or watching chances against us that teams weren’t finishing, take the anfield game my stomach was being turned upside down watching Gakpo ping it off the post or salah sky it wide right and a lot of games felt like they turned into tennis matches.
The Bournemouth game felt like one of the few times teams really took advantage of how open we can suddenly be in the midfield, not because of a lack of legs but because of the odd positions and how this enables an easy run at the back line.
It can’t all be individual mistakes, a lot of the time what is a mistake at the moment of the goal can be traced back to an earlier issue, take heavens mistake in the Leeds game, Dalot and zirkzee are just as much to blame for a poor pass / hold up.
I feel like this has been an issue with our midfield set up, when you watch the Bournemouth goals back for instance you can see times where the ball deflects into the middle and Bruno and Case are in the most bizarre places, not primed for the Hope spot pick up that cruyff talks about, instead you can see 3-4 Bournemouth players in the middle running at the back line.
Did Martinez or heaven make poor decisions in those moments? Yes they did, but I’d argue the set up put them in exposed positions personally.
When we did move to the four at the back and case and Ugarte stayed in a flatter line in front of the defence we looked more solid and in the first half before Mount I’d argue we also looked more attacking.
In games where we shift to his 3-4-3 the two pivots become more vertical and you can see by their heat maps and passing networks they no longer split the field and cover the left or right hand side but rather stand in front of each other and I think this doesn’t provide adequate protection or enable a smoother build up particularly with aged legs or technically weaker players.
https://theanalyst.com/football/team/scm-1/manchester-united/fixtures
His system may work, my real issue with him is that I don’t think it was working with the current players he had at hand and in the Newcastle game we saw a potential way to get results even if it wasn’t ideal and to me a practical manager would have taken that but he was more wedded to proving the system.
I have no problem with him trying to prove the system, but do it after another summer of transfers when you’ve proven you can adapt and get the best of a bad scenario.
As we’ve seen his current approach led to a run of stale results, an emotional blowup meeting and ultimately him losing the job.
I wanted him to succeed but I genuinely think he only wanted to do it on his terms and that’s a recipe for disaster when it puts you against the board.
Edit: hot spot not Hope spot
I agree with this. I hope I’m wrong but I fully expect the club to continue to slide and regress over the next 12 months.
Although the one reason I do hold out hope is because our signings have been significantly better over the last 12 months since INEOS have come in.
Last season was written off post ETH, and therefore just about all metrics in that period have no value. Anyone relying on them is automatically a halfwit.
As you point out, this season’s were heading in the right direction and picking up in trajectory.
If it would’ve been possible to improve the squad per Amorim’s requests and stick to transfer budget/strategy then we would’ve been a much better team come May. Now we have to start over…again.
Personally, and for most people I know, I was more entertained watching us. It seems like a lot of poor results, but the draws are why we are in 6th. Small margins and you convert half of those to wins, and you’re comfortable in 4th, 4 points off second. And most of the games have been better to watch. More fun than watching Jose come second!
Couldn't agree more.
Last season was a write off but they've changed their minds now and it's all about 'win rate' now over both seasons.
We're completely fucked if our leadership is as reactionary as the fanbase.
e-fans ≠ fan base.
Amorim cult are not well people
What do you disagree with? Or do you just call using logic cult behaviour because you aren’t capable of using it?
It’s all nonsense.
What specifically is nonsense? Use your own words, not just what the media have told you to say
The nonsense is writing off the season after he came in.
All the big clubs on the continent wouldn't have even let him get to the UEL final
That’s most of Reddit, nothing to do with in or out.
Im from outside here. As a neutral, i can see although the results werent good, but the playstyle was much better than during ETH era. Yes during ETH you won cups and what not but it seems like peppering cracks rather than actually moving forward, as can be seen by his eventual sacking.
Dare i say Man Utd was upcoming of being competent again. And then you sack the manager like what the hell.
For me people put so much pressure on 343 433 or whatever formation that is. Why would anybody care if the club is winning or at least progressing? Nobody said anything to Conte when 343 won the league.
Point being i see as an outsider, theres someone/something/some agenda just wanted him out and fail then they nitpick everything once losses coming. Oh the subs coming late oh the 343 oh should play Rashford and etc.
My friends who support other clubs (some Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle) all say the same things.
You're playing a lot better despite those draws and the missing players now.
The shite we hear consistently about the formation is unheard of elsewhere.
This feels like you're actually building towards something again, not just papering over cracks.
Peppering all over my pampered crack
We've discovered autocorrect
I read that they talked to Amorim about changing his tactics which he didn't like, because they hired him for his playstyle why ask him to change it. which leads to the prematch interview of leeds where he talked about people have to do their own job and not get pressured by outside noises
Read something similar myself and seems to fit the scenario.
It's strange to me because his play style at Sporting was heavily attacking, the wingback are in the opponents half like wingers and the team has 3 or 4 academy grads every year. I'm sure they looked at this and thought “This is like United DNA”.
They've replaced the Forward line having got rid of 9 players in the summer and signed him a goalkeeper. It's not been enough.
It's a bad look anyways whatever happened as they clearly made promises to him and changed their minds which led to that outburst.
Amorim’s style relies on a strong central midfield, he asked for midfield strengthening in the summer and was overruled.
But guess what they didn’t sign him a midfielder. The same midfield that got Ten Hag fired.
Do you think a manager in the Premier League should only know and play one tactical shape? Be rigid against all teams and not adapt to the opponent? This isn't Arteta or Pep who knew to adapt, this is Ruben Amorim with a win rate that even if he won the next 30 games in a row wouldn't reach 60%...that's awful.
1) He doesn't have 'one tactical shape'. The starting line up says 343, but we attack and defend in different shapes. We've seen 442, 316, 352. Stated experimenting in the summer pre season. Beat Brighton at home for the first time in years playing mostly a 442. People can't get past the 343 when we start.
You mentioned Arsenal? Guess what? They line up in a 4231 on livescore.com but actually play in a 352, 316, 442. Arsenal play 4cbs and 2 dms. They've been patient and allowed him to build.
If you're saying 'one tactical shape' you've likely not watched our games this season from a tactical perspective. We're eerily similar to Arteta's and Klopp's early progress.
Now "win rate" - another brush that's unfair. He inherited that sinking ship from Ten Hag last season and that should be viewed in isolation and with context. Ten Hag had us in 13th when sacked and our season prior we finished 8th (with an expected performance of 13th). We also let go of Rashford/Antony in January under Ruben and signed no replacements. We then prioritised the Europa league towards the end. Yes it wasn't good enough but that season was a write off. People said it was a right off and it was clearly viewed as that. All of a sudden it's not anymore and we're using it to form arguments like 'win rate'. It's a joke.
If we're going to keep doing this, we're fucked.
Listen I have been Ruben's biggest fighter on here for months even to the Leeds game
But ALL formations switch in and out of possession. That is not exclusive to systems and is not exclusive to Ruben or Lego Pep.
Learn ball knowledge please before you attempt to analyse something you know fuck all on.
Yes, they do change.
Ruben, Pep, Arteta, whoever.
You're the one who clearly knows fuck all.
Don't jump in here mouthing off when you've nothing to add of value.
You tried to add value to me in your reply...
I am telling you that it makes no difference.
It's a results game and we are 4 points from Palace. Another damning statistic?
Game week 20 last season:
8th 31 points
This season:
6th 31 points.
The fact is that Ruben was rigid, he was sending the lads out in 343 after training 4 at the back for the week. He had a hot head and too young for the pressures of United and criticism. His own farts will one day smell like the rest of us it just takes a come down of ego.
There's a big difference in the data this season and last season though.
We let 9 players go in the summer, signed 4.
We're now missing half our team and played well at Leeds considering. Yes, too many draws. Possible to convert them to wins? Absolutely.
You don't fix every issue in the team in 18 months. It's a step by step approach.
Maybe the trajectory was too slow for you. With added context of where we took over at the position the club is at, it's not for me and a lot of people.
https://preview.redd.it/fwlkbeh18pbg1.jpeg?width=3351&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a7c827a1fff4e657151935df36a111088ddcf614
https://preview.redd.it/fs8jilj48pbg1.jpeg?width=3570&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7989e91d4c4bc40ee80df908b7c1b1b557e3e983
My worry is now with the next manager and the morale of the team, who were all clearly behind Ruben, barring Kobbie, who's showing petulance online.
31 points
4 points from Palace, results trending downwards going into January, and no Ten Hag drama this season with less games and your talking about slow progress.
The data does not matter if we end up out of Europe on a vanity project. Ruben wasn't suited to Manchester United based on what has come out about his temper, attitude to players etc.
what does points per game mean anyway? Man city was the first team to hit 100 points in a season, does that make them better than every single premier league team ever?
He signed Dorgu as well so 5 first team players. Pretty decent amount of change for two windows.
He lost 9….
Of those 9 how many were regularly playing? We also have 15-18 less games this season because of his failure to get European football last term.
The squad was never getting European football last season. Even before he took over they went on track for a bottom half position.
And players that were getting game time under ten hag: Rashford Garnacho Antony Sancho Hojlund Onana Collyer Eriksen Evan’s
They were 4pts I think off the European places when he took over. They missed by 15-20pts.
Other clubs changed managers last year and got immediately better.
They were 4pts off whilst results were significantly better than performances. Most teams regress to the mean over a full season.
I don’t think that’s quite true. ETH was quite unlucky before being sacked. We had the most high danger chances missed. We should have got better results against Palace and West Ham for example.
Even more damning for Amorim is how well Ruud did during his short tenure.
100% agree. It was only a matter of time where the results will materialized. Most games showed it just needs to click just once. Just once.The manager was backed and bought him offensive players and they improved going forward massively.
Media tried so hard to destroy it and succeeded. Move aside the W % or results, the team showed "identity" of how they play. Just down to the very basic of passing, they were crisp and with purpose. They were being taught to risk again and it was ok to make mistakes. They massively improved defending corners and surprisingly even better in scoring. All Amorim needed was control and containment in midfield and a solid CB. United would have been back.
INEOS made a big mistake and could set United back for another 3 to 5 years including this season. You cant measure improvement in results. At this stage of the rebuild you dont. you measure improvement at a micro level. Down to the very basic of football. Yall ate that "win % BS" up so hard and missed all the little things improved vs 2 to 3 years ago under EtH.
It all matters for not if any of this results in losing/drawing games. The only stat that matters is points. Thats it. I dont think he was taking us much further and we need europe this season we cant afford to miss out again
That argument would make sense if A) we were outside the European qualification positions and B) There was someone lined up to take over with a proven record of success. Neither are true, expecting Fletcher to be the man is Vibes FC bullshit based on nothing.
If you’re building for the future, performances are more important than results. Pick up any coaching or psychology book I pray.
At least the internet trolls are all happy now that we got rid of another manager. The cycle continues because it's not the manager, it's the people we have that is the issue.
United looks like a juicy beast that everyone wants to leech off. Glazes have done an excellent job of sucking it dry as best as they can. It's testament to how big we are that we are still relevant. This won't sustain forever though. One of these days, a sensible person needs to make a sensible decision - pick a decent manager and back him up, stop buying crap off the market, build home grown players and go back to what we really were before the money merchants arrived.
Some day. A man can hope. I want to be able to sing "glory glory Man United" without having to wince at each word, for once. 🙏
I just hope that the only way to become successful again isn't by ruining our brand by being terrible, getting relegated, leading the Glazers to sell the club, and then starting afresh. I'll still support them no matter what but nothing is working because the problem is at the top.
We were all pissed when Amorim was making shitty substitutions but we never really wanted him gone. There’s the difference, I wanted him to stay but also had my own opinion which shouldn’t really matter anyways. The point is, he’s appointment was poor, he himself didn’t wanna come half way through the season then they ask him to change he’s style and he said fuck you. That’s it.
I agree with the sentiment from Cahill, though the point I’d argue with about Amorim is that there has been an improvement on the pitch. A lot of comments saying the football has been better, I think other than maybe two or three games, the performances have been absolutely awful, even before the injury crisis.
What were we, 3rd highest net spend? having given away players he didnt want around, and it still wasn't enough? I'm all for backing the manager, but there's a reasonable expectation off fiscal responsibility behind that and it's no excuse for the cowardly tavtics of subbing a CB for a CB when chasing a game.
He's been here 18 months and signed like 4 players.
We spent the 5th most in the summer and have the 6th lowest wage bill now.
You're not making any sense at all.
Oh yeah, definitely should have just been throwing teenagers on instead, that’d have done the job…
The lengths people are going to, to defend Amorim, when he has shown very little is inane. I feel like I’m being gaslight. The best we have looked is when he played a back 4 and he consistently moved away from it when he tried it. If Ole had finished 15th all of the people bending o er backwards to defend Amorim would have lost their minds.
He never played a back 4, he has always played a variation of back 3. It's insane to me that people are saying we played a back 4, do you guys even watch the games?
It's hilarious because he played a back 4 against Newcastle until Mason Mount got injured and had to change back, this where the whole “we played better with a back 4” came from.
What's even more funny is that Arsenal the league leaders play with 4 CBs and 2 DM and start with a back 4 but actually play in a 325, 316, 442 variations. City do it too.
If Ruben Started with a 4 and played in a 343, 325, 442 like we've seen, these people probably wouldn't even notice.
Their knowledge is usually limited to what they see on livescore.com formation section
honestly, after reading everything on both subs since yesterday it's like a litmus test for ball knowledge.
You can be Amorim In or Out that's up for debate and opinions that's fine. However, if you couldn't see the improvement in our play and general progression of chance creation and having an identity then you either don't watch the games or have no ball knowledge.
There's a reason why he never lost the crowd at Old Trafford despite his win-rate.
We became a tough team to beat. Most shots on target in the league. Some of these draws we should have won. It's eerily similar to how Tim Cahill describes Arsenal back then and it was the same with Klopp in his early days.
I'm not saying Ruben would have been as good but the metrics were finally getting good.
With Ten Hag the underlying metrics were were always worse than our position.
https://preview.redd.it/s9u477v4ambg1.jpeg?width=3588&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7086c209611a5eb9df79549f6dadbffe47004fe
The 15th is what people obsess over and can't see past even though it was a continuation of the collapse we seen under Ten Hag.
Seriously, compared to ten hags football Ruben's looks like prime Ferguson.
I bow down to your superior “ball knowledge”
No. Because some people actually have a level of intelligence and notice things. The issue with the 343 is that it didn’t put the players in the best position to succeed. You’re right the formation on paper doesn’t mean that much in isolation because the shape will be different in possession, out of possession, transitioning to attack, transitioning to defence. But Amroim didnt put the players he had in the best positing to succeed most of the time. We have no wing backs but he insisted on a formation where that was key. It didn’t have a typical number 10 which put our best player out of position. It left the midfield open, which was also an issue under ten hag who did start with a back 4. Also you’re wrong this is just about the Newcastle game.
Moron. He did play a back 4 at times recently. But sorry obviously you’re so much smarter. Twitter tactico who knows better.
And I suppose you Reddit messiah knows more do you? Clown
https://preview.redd.it/wrl05zo37mbg1.jpeg?width=3351&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4484eed87428bb1109e09ad69c625d7bafda6489
Cool. What does the xG d'Or look like this year?
https://preview.redd.it/jlq2f6ne7mbg1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=615f975c139a828a30de80dfc9cbaf1a14ced7e9
Here’s the most important one you seemed to have left out.
You've completely misunderstood the premise of the video. Not surprised though.
I agree with Cahill, thing is though Arteta actually had a clear plan that suited the club and players from day one. Yeah he struggled with personnel at the time but you could see the vision. We never once had that under Amorim, you can bang on about xG etc all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve chucked the best part of 14 months out the window.
No. You’re just assuming that because Cahill struggled earlier on, that Amorim would too given time. That’s not good logic.
What would this look like if our players could finish their dinner, hmm?
You Amorim Out lot love ignoring context and details. Simpletons.
Incredible analysis. “If they scored more goals we’d be better”
Fucking hell, if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.
Are you actually stupid?
The managers job is to get the team creating chances. Amorim did that.
Pep Guardiola knows more than you about football and he said "My job is taking you to the final 3rd and your job is to finish" about his attack.
Amorim did his job in getting us to the final third. Our players shit the bed. And braindead fans like you who don't know football beyond reacting on social media think that's on Amorim.
And he couldn’t get the team to keep the goals out. He couldn’t stop them conceding immediately after half time. He couldn’t stop substituting defenders when we needed a goal. He couldn’t stop the team sitting back after taking a lead.
He improved one aspect of our play this season with the chance creation which frankly is as much to do with the signings as it his tactics.
Yet another fan who doesn't watch games. Most of the goals we concede are down to individual errors and concentration issues. Nothing to do with how we're setup or what the manager has done.
Amorim has to be the only manager in history who makes good signings who perform well then has haters saying "the manager doesnt deserve praise for signing players who score goals."
He doesn’t sign the players though. He was the Head Coach.
And every goal in football is a combination of tactics and individual error. Many of them can attributed to Amorim. Why did we come out so sloppy repeatedly after the break? What was it about his team talk that resulted in the team not being up for to second half?
How many late goals came because he ceded the initiative by going negative with his subs? This was a mistake ETH also used to make. You can’t take off all of your goal threat it just invites pressure.
That's what Tim Cahill is talking about with Arsenal. The metrics were good but they weren't getting the results. We all know what happened then.
The metrics are absolutely not good under Amorim 👍
Yup. That's why I wish we stuck with Amorim. We were genuinely like 2 or 3 key signings from a big step up in permanent improvement. .
A midfielder to help us control games and defend. A wingback to help create from the left. A CB to level up our defence and stay fit.
We could have done what Arsenal have done and stuck to a project. But no, our fanbase and owners are egotistical, impatient, braindead idiots
Anyone with eyes and reason could see that we weren't a million miles away from being a good team again. Alas, most of our fans are children, or have kids mentalities.
We are still 2 or 3 signings away, Amorim isn't taking the players he signed with him.
Yeah, but I would have liked to see Amorim getting those players. Any manager that comes in should get backed, and Amorim was left hung out to dry in terms of every part of the pitch except attack.
I would like to see Manchester United getting those players
You know what I mean.
The moment the Amorim cult moves on and shut up about him the better
"The Amorim cult" 😂
Talking sense doesn't mean you're in a cult. We'll still be here trying to reason with you dumdums the next time United are in bad form and no closer to a rebuild because you have the patience and logic of a toddler.
“Talking sense” 😂
Yeah, you know, using context and details in our analysis of the current situation at United instead of you children panicking as soon as United aren't finished the rebuild in a month.
That isn’t what is happening. Rather than being contrarian and thinking you’re the smartest in the room maybe actually look at the football, the results and the actions of Amorim. The reason people think it’s getting better is because it got so bad it had to improve. That doesn’t mean it’s good enough. You also aren’t using statistics correctly, lowly because you aren’t as smart as you think you are.
Oh look! Another tiktok-brained, impatient "fan" who wants immediate success or else!
Our club has been in the gutter for a decade and we finally made some progress in getting rid of overpaid divas, building a foundation of improved attitudes, scoring goals and creating chances for once that could have lasted long term but no, the egos of the board and you mouth breathers threw your rattles out of the pram and got another manager sacked.
Fans like you lot actually deserve the mess this club is in.
Funny how some managers, you watch their teams and know they're good but with Amorim, we need context for every situation, a ton of biased metrics, the ability to ignore the metrics that show his failings, ability to see into the future, a soothsayer and a witch Dr just to know that's he's good enough. But if we use our eyes for the last 14 months, then that's idiotic and we can't see his genius.
So many people have fallen into the trap of thinking ‘if you stick with a manager, it’ll all work out’. It’ll only do that with the right ones.
We beat a Liverpool side that had their worst run of form since the 50’s and battered a Bournemouth side (who were 6 games without a win) for 35 minutes (and still didn’t win the game), and people thought we were on the up. We’ve dropped so many points to teams we should have beat, but there was always an excuse.
Exactly. I get it’s exhausting to start the cycle again of a new manger. But the wa people have convinced themselves despite all evidence, that Amorim is the one. It’s like I’m being gaslight. It’s like a cult. I don’t care about karma but look at how my first comment is being downvoted to gauge the opinion. It’s mind blowing. Yet Ole who finished 3rd then 2nd was constantly called a pe teacher. I don’t understand some people.
https://preview.redd.it/9qw0jjd57mbg1.jpeg?width=3570&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fd7ad3be691b4836c9d63081c63ed9423cd8b9ad
The improvement is definitely there, despite after 1 transfer window and the lack of depth of the squad. He is building a foundation that got destroyed once again by the management with big egos
https://preview.redd.it/9qjk5g577mbg1.jpeg?width=3549&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7e08e4b0ce7dcbd7dccba84e64e666342a5faa5c
Maybe show the fact that the only reason for the significant increase is because we have scored a bunch of set piece goals. 19 open play goals in 20 matches this season compared to 17 in the first 20 last season. Wheres the improvement despite the 100s of million spent on attack. All that money just to be a budget arsenal who are even more reliant on set pieces.
https://preview.redd.it/n6idgctoambg1.jpeg?width=3351&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=62323bd2239810f4374397928dcfa809b1d51f7c
No, it's mainly because we're taking more shots.
We also had one transfer window WTF are you talking about.
Whats mainly because we are taking more shots?
You can't just base attacking prowess on goals scored.
He means that the players are not only getting more shooting opportunities but better quality ones that increases your likelihood of scoring.
We did score more set piece goals but isn't that a good thing? It's a result of the team being higher up the pitch drawing more fouls trying to break down the opponent.
The players are getting fouled more often on average.
For example,
Bruno's first season under Ten Hag, even though he was playing in 10/CAM position he was only getting fouled 0.81 per 90 in the 13th percentile.
While under Amorim this season, even though he's technically deeper and you'd expect him to get fouled less but instead due to trying to control games + possession based approach in chance creation instead of just counter attack , he's getting fouled more often.
https://preview.redd.it/2j4rxx12hmbg1.png?width=427&format=png&auto=webp&s=ce1343c5b80314162904cfa223497290853a5971
Resulting into more set piece opportunities in dangerous areas that we have managed to convert.
I didnt say scoring more set piece goals is a good thing but given we signed 2 of the leagues best finishers we should have more open play goals than what we have. Casemiro is a second highest goalscorer if you dont include penalties. Given we spent about 200 million on our frontline the quality and output we have seen bar mbeumo hasnt been close to good enough and that is on the manager.
My only hope is for the Talk of the Devils podcast to shed more light. I listened to their latest one today but it didn't have any more information than already available. Maybe more will follow soon. It's been kinda shocking, but also not really, that this happened.
Amorim is the hipster, think they are experts on tactics, think they’re the smartest in the room persons manger. All of the Amorim in lot just think they’re smarter, more righteous than anyone else. Just look at the results and the football. If you can’t see that maybe start watching 10 pin bowling.
They said that about Arteta as well, not doing so bad with some backing.
And time. The thing with long term projects is… 🤔
Arteta has still won less trophies than ETH.
He consistently delivers high quality results in the Premier League and Europe, all the Amorim out crew ever talk about is ‘standards’, surely having your club eating at the top table week in week out over a period of years is the gold standard?
No, they didn’t say that
Yes, the conversation was very similar.
No, it wasn’t. The similarity is the struggle. The cult of Amorim because he’s the hipster choice isn’t the same.