The Portuguese has been criticised for rotating his squad too much but he should assemble two separate XIs to cope with fixture congestion
"Rotation is a part of the modern game. It's got to be. Look at how fast the Premier League is and the intensity of the matches. The speed of the game has changed and somewhere along the line I have to make changes." Those aren't the words of Manchester United's current boss Ruben Amorim or his predecessor Erik ten Hag. They came from the mouth of Sir Alex Ferguson towards the end of a draining 64-game season in 2009.
Since then, the pace of the Premier League has quickened and the number of matches in club and international football has swelled. There has never been a greater need for squad rotation and yet changing players, either from game to game or during matches, remains hugely unpopular. Players want to be involved in every match, coaches want their best players to play every minute and so do fans. Just look at the reaction to United's 3-2 defeat at home to Nottingham Forest on Saturday. When Bruno Fernandes was taken off in the 75th minute for Mason Mount, there were audible boos from the Old Trafford faithful. And when the full-time whistle went to confirm a second successive defeat, fingers were pointed at Amorim for making five changes from his previous line-up at Arsenal, and for making five substitutions.
"When you keep changing players and you keep changing your back three and you take five players off, you're basically saying to all of them that you don't trust them," said Gary Neville on NBC Sports. "All of a sudden you've got a completely different system, a completely different set of players on the pitch at the end of the game. You can never get consistency."
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Amorim has warned on several occasions that he would have to rotate his team due to the sheer number of games and so that he can assess as many players as possible. And despite the negative results of the last week, he needs to keep doing it. In fact, the solution to the fixture gridlock he is facing is to go even further and mimic Chelsea by assembling an 'A' team for Premier League games and a 'B' team for European and cup competitions.