A day after Manchester United lost to Grimsby Town on penalties, Ruben Amorim was been given the vote of confidence from the Manchester United board. This typically means the end of the Amorim era is fast approaching.
As The Athletic’s Andy Mitten would say, “Amorim is losing the moderates.” The United coach has won just eight Premier League matches from 29, and his team has failed to score in 12 of those matches. The latest blow was going out of the League Cup to League Two’s Grimsby Town in a match where
Grimsby were by far the better team. Amorim couldn’t even bring himself to watch his team take their penalties.
Amorim’s job has never been easy. He’ll become the latest Manchester United manager to want to bring change to the club, only to be spat out by the machine that doesn’t seem capable of allowing anyone to be a success.
There are United fans loath to make another change. They’ll spit out the same tired narrative that these are the same players that have done this to previous managers – five of the 11 starters against Grimsby having made their United debut under Amorim – and what would sacking Amorim actually accomplish?
In order to answer that, we need to deduce how much of the current blame truly falls onto Amorim.
Let’s start by stating the obvious. No manager in the post-Fergie era has been the single point of failure for Manchester United. The club is horribly run. Each manager has inherited a mess and then been given entirely too much power to try and fix the mess themselves. It often leads to said manager leaving an even bigger mess than he found.
The whole culture has created an environment that is extremely difficult – but not impossible – for any manager to be successful here. Part of the problem is that “success” itself is a broad term with different meanings to different people.
Having said that, Ruben Amorim is not doing himself any favors.
Tactical
Ruben Amorim is about as strict an ideologue as they come. He’s steadfast in his beliefs and will not compromise on them.
There are two problems with that. One is that systems don’t win you games, players do. No system is so amazing that playing it “the right way” will magically make you win games. The second is that Amorim’s system is deeply flawed.
It would be naive at this point to say United is still trying to “learn” Amorim’s system. The team is comprised of professionals and full internationals who have spent their entire careers bouncing between different systems as they switch clubs/coaches or even just go to their national teams. It doesn’t take 40 games to learn a system.
It would be naive to say United is still trying to learn Amorim’s system. They take up the same positions every game. The passing networks look the same week after week. The players don’t look lost or confused out there. They are playing Amorim’s system. It just doesn’t work.
The biggest issue is their inability to create chances and score goals.
United have failed to score in 12 of Amorim’s 29 Premier League matches in charge, a rate of 41.38 percent. Their previous worst mark over the last eight seasons was failing to score in six of the 23 matches (26.09%) Ralf Rangnick was in charge of.
United’s issues under Amorim aren’t just about failing to create good chances for their best finishers; it’s about failing to create high-quality chances full stop. Last season, United took 372 shots in 27 games under Amorim; only 38 of those shots had an xG value of 0.2 or higher – 10.22 percent.
This could be down to not having good enough players. As a third of the season was played with the same players and different coaches, we can test that hypothesis.
In the 11 matches under Erik Ten Hag and Ruud van Nistelrooy, United took 153 shots, 27 of which had an xG value of 0.2 or higher – 17.65 percent. Zoom out to the entire Ten Hag era, and that number is 13.76 percent.
But the real kicker is when those shots are coming. Under Amorim, 12 of the 38 shots with a 0.2 xG or better have come in the 89th minute or later in a match. 31.58 percent are coming in the final five minutes (plus stoppage time) of the match! This is the point of the match where tactics are thrown out the window, and United typically throws everything forward. Only three of the 27 shots above 0.2 xG under Ten Hag and Ruud came in the last five minutes of the match. In the entire Ten Hag era, there were only 17 of these shots!
Under Amorim United’s xG per shot in the last five minutes of the game stands at 0.11. Before the 86th minute, it’s 0.09. This inability to create high-quality chances until the point in the match where you throw everything out the window suggests there’s a major tactical flaw here.
This season is obviously too small a sample size, but so far the numbers are right in line with what they were last year. The match against Grimsby Town fell right in line.
Amorim’s tactical setup seems to create a lot more problems than it solves. His use of his wingbacks is inconsistent and asks way too much of them.
Out of possession, the wingbacks tend to drop back and form a back five, leaving the midfield awfully bare.
Once United are in possession, Amorim wants his wingbacks all the way up the pitch on the last line of defense.
This creates a problem for the attack because now your furthest player forward – and the one who is supposed to drive the attack forward – is a defender. Most players don’t grow up wanting to become defenders; they become defenders because they aren’t good enough attackers. These aren’t the guys you want in the most dangerous positions, but that’s how Amorim deploys them.
It also creates another problem. The wingbacks push up as soon as United gets possession of the ball, regardless of where that possession is. That means if anything happens in the midfield area, United are quickly left pretty bare at the back. On Grimsby Town’s first goal, there wasn’t a wingback in sight, on either side of the pitch.
The Grimsby match will be the nadir of the Amorim era. Manchester United should not need a tactical plan to beat Grimsby Town. 11 players on the pitch with instructions to “figure it out” should be enough. It might be ugly, but the talent advantage should get the job done.
That’s not going to fly for the ideologue in Amorim. He has to play his way, with the players standing in the positions that he tells them to. He chose a team that featured five defenders and a defensive midfielder (who contributes nothing in possession) against a League Two side! Five defenders!
When United needed a goal, they couldn’t abandon that shape either. They threw attackers on the pitch but Mason Mount was still clearly playing as a left wing back in a back five. This was similar to the Europa League final when United were chasing a goal, but Amorim still had five defenders on the pitch.
Personnel selection aside, the Grimsby match was a wake-up call that everyone and their mother knows how United are going to play and how to exploit that. With United’s wingbacks pushed high up the pitch, Grimsby continuously sent balls into the channels out wide. This forces the center backs to either stretch out and go wide, which they don’t want to do, or concede the space out wide. This tactic led to Grimsby’s first goal, and the pressure led to the onslaught of corners that continued to put United’s goal under pressure.
If a League Two side is doing this to you, you know the Premier League sides are going to do the same thing, which they have. Arsenal attempted to attack the channels several times on the opening day of the season. Fulham did the same when scoring their goal a week later. It’s the same tactic that led to Burnley’s first equalizer at Old Trafford, combined with the same tactic that Fulham’s player and coach publicly spoke about after the match!
As Fulham said, United like to have their center backs follow the man and jump into the play, so Burnley drop a forward into midfield, sucking Luke Shaw out of the back line.
Burnley then plays it wide into the channel. As United hadn’t just been in possession, Diogo Dalot is actually in position, so Burnley have their striker make a run to the channel.
This also takes advantage of Shaw being up the pitch as now it’s the central center back, Matthijs de Ligt, who has to come wide and cover. De Ligt doesn’t want to get sucked too far out wide, making it easy for Burnley to maintain possession.
With De Ligt wide Shaw comes back to the middle while Dalot also comes inside. When Burnley “recycle” possession United attempt to scramble back into position, with De Ligt eager to get back inside and switch with Dalot.
Just like a week prior against Fulham and midweek against Grimsby, this creates confusion and leads to no United player picking up the man out wide or the man making the run in the middle.
These repeatable patterns are the result of a gap in Amorim’s system that he’s just not addressing. It’s being exploited week after week.
Now, United don’t always leave their center backs exposed when the wing backs push high up the pitch. One of the ways they cover for this is often with a central midfielder pulling out wide to guard that space.
The problem is they only have two midfielders, and when one goes wide, the other has to follow suit. Take this situation where United loses the ball and Casemiro runs wide to help cover the space vacated by the wing-back. This forces Bruno – his central midfield partner – to also come across the pitch. That leaves the middle of the pitch wide open and accessible with just one well-placed pass.
And from there, Burnley can easily launch wide diagonals to try and stretch United’s defense.
This problem in the midfield isn’t a Casemiro can’t cover ground anymore problem. It’s not a Bruno Fernandes is an attacker playing in midfield issue. It’s not a Kobbie Mainoo can’t accelerate or lacks physicality or Manuel Ugarte problem. It’s structural. Signing Carlos Baleba would have been nice, but he wasn’t fixing this issue.
It’s going to happen no matter who is out there. It happened all season last year and will continue happening until something changes.
If Amorim’s tactics are the major component causing United to underperform, then that stands to reason that Amorim carries the most (non-ownership level) blame for the current malaise. And if Amorim is most to blame, then surely making a change would solve a lot of problems?
Who or what can solve this?
It’s not about who would be better suited to manage Manchester United, because any manager who focuses on trying to make the best out of this squad rather than exclusively sticking to a system will probably do better. There are many who believe simply swapping to a back four, 4-2-3-1, or 4-3-3 will lead to better results for United.
I’m of the belief that in cases like this, simplicity is often the best. Let your fullbacks be fullbacks, your midfielders be midfielders, and keep your attackers close to the goal, and let your fullbacks provide support. Stop rotating for the sake of doing rotations and focus on how you can get the ball to your best players in the most dangerous positions.
In other words, don’t overcomplicate things.
There is a fear that United have just spent the summer going all in on Amorim and signing players specifically for his system. Therefore, bailing on him now could mean throwing away the season. I’m not worried about this. All of United’s signings this summer have ample experience playing in back four systems (because frankly, who doesn’t?). Patrick Dorgu has played as a left back, Bryan Mbeumo has played as a right wing in a 4-2-3-1, and Mathues Cunha has played as a left wing and number 10.
Those players adapting to a back four is not a concern, but that doesn’t mean the squad hasn’t been “post-Ruben Amorim-proofed” this summer.
Should United make a switch to a back four system like a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3, their options for those deep midfield slots are Casemiro, Manuel Ugarte, Kobbie Mainoo, and… erm… Bruno Fernandes. That is dangerously light, and that’s before factoring in Casemiro and Ugarte’s limitations or that right now, Kobbie Mainoo is more potential than product.
Ideally, a switch to a 4-2-3-1 would allow Bruno to return to his natural number 10 position. Still, no combination of Casemiro, Ugarte, and Mainoo really provides a Premier League-caliber midfield partnership that will be able to do what’s required of a Premier League midfield. Should a new manager opt to play a 4-3-3, Mason Mount can slot in as one of the more attacking central midfielders, but again, none of the three aforementioned midfielders are good enough to play behind Mount and Bruno as the lone 6.
A switch to a back four would continue to put the spotlight on an issue that plagues Amorim. In addition to midfield, United are pretty light in the fullback area. Luke Shaw slotting over to left back would provide a serious boost in the position, but does he have the fitness to do it over a whole season? He’s only started at least 20 games in a campaign once in the last four years. On the right, Dalot and Mazraoui are both steady Eddie’s who are solid in a lot of areas, but neither stands out in any one particular thing. They are particularly weak in the final third, which they’d need to provide support.
Overall, the question of “which manager fixes this” is a bit of a misnomer, because what does “fix this” actually mean? United is not a manager away from being a title contender. They’re not a manager away from being in contention for the top four. No manager is coming in and suddenly bringing the team to that level.
In 25 matches against non-newly promoted teams, Ruben Amorim has won 0.72 points per match. That’s a 38-game pace of 27.32 points. Does “fix this” simply mean coming in and being able to do better than that? Or, does it mean just getting the team to perform to their talent level?
United could move on from Amorim and even get a nice new manager bump. But ultimately, the weakness in the midfield is going to put a low ceiling on how far this team can go. At best, this is a 60-point team, and right now that is being generous.
At this point, there isn’t really a question of whether or not Ruben Amorim is getting the best out of this squad. His tactics are flawed, and he refuses to change, which would be a problem even if his tactics weren’t flawed, as eventually people would figure it out. United could make a change and bring in someone who gets more out of the squad. Unfortunately, the club overlooked a serious area of the pitch this summer, leaving them as a mid-table side at best.
