LISBON, PORTUGAL - NOVEMBER 5: Coach Pep Guardiola of Manchester City congratulates coach Ruben Amorim of Sporting CP during the UEFA Champions League match between Sporting CP v Manchester City at the Estadio Jose Alvalade on November 5, 2024 in Lisbon Portugal (Photo by Eric Verhoeven/Soccrates/Getty Images)
Ruben Amorim has already got the better of Pep Guardiola once this season
"United cannot play the way we play." So said Ruben Amorim after guiding Sporting to a thrilling 4-1 win against Manchester City at the start of November. He wasn't kidding, was he?
The 39-year-old, seeing out his tenure in Lisbon before taking up the post of head coach at Old Trafford, meant it in the sense that United couldn't be so defensive, sitting back and then breaking with electrifying speed, but in hindsight, it's a comment that could be interpreted in a number of different ways.
Rasmus Hojlund's 88th-minute winner in Plzen on Thursday night has kept Amorim's start reasonably positive, with three wins, one draw, and two defeats. However, his 3-4-3 system has looked a very different beast when United's players fill those roles rather than Sporting's.
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Part of that is understandable. That Sporting side had been drilled for years on how to perfect patterns of play in a system Amorim never deviated from. United's squad is still learning the ropes, and they are doing so when time on the training ground is severely limited. As Hojlund said on Thursday, they are developing this system by playing games.
But it's not only tactically where there is a shortfall, it's also physical. Amorim has made it public that the squad he inherited doesn't have the fitness capacity to run the distances he expects in a system that puts a premium on running. That was much noticeable when Sporting beat City.
That night, Pep Guardiola's side went 1-0 up, and Sporting had to survive an early onslaught, but when they got a foothold in the game, they kept their foot on the gas. It was the third in City's 10-game run that has produced seven defeats and just one win and it was the first time it became really noticeable that they were having their legs run off them.
Teams have copied that approach recently, and United will look to put it to the test at the Etihad. However, it won't be as easy to achieve as it was at Sporting.
“We cannot transport one reality to another,” Amorim said after that game. “United cannot play the way we play, they cannot be so defensive. Of course it’s good to beat City. But I’ll be living in a different world, we’ll have to start from a different point.”
This is one of a couple of fixtures in a season when United fans would accept a defensive approach. After all, a back three against City worked wonders for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Amorim has seen the blueprint to beat City. Their defensive fitness issues and the battering their confidence has taken have, if anything, made them even more vulnerable this weekend. Now, the question is, does he have the players to get close enough to repeating that approach with United?
It will be interesting to see if he packs his team with runners. There must surely be a place for Amad, possibly out wide, to try to stretch City and push them back. Rasmus Hojlund is the closest United have got to Victor Gyokeres up front.
Runners through the middle have particularly hurt the Blues recently. Kobbie Mainoo could be tasked with driving forward with the ball, and maybe Alejandro Garnacho gets a role as one of the No. 10s because of his dribbling ability.
Pep Guardiola will expect this to be a different game from the one in Lisbon, and the players involved will mean that has to be the case. However, it could still provide a few flashbacks for the Catalan and give Amorim the belief that he knows what is required to record a famous win.