Ruben Amorim
Defeat to Bournemouth showed the sizeable task facing Ruben Amorim
Ruben Amorim claims he was to blame for another defensive horror show from Manchester United and admits the mental strain of his team’s increasingly worrying season is starting to be felt, among supporters and players alike. After the 3-0 defeat at home to Bournemouth, here are 10 huge areas of concern facing the Portuguese manager.
1: Results
Football is a results business and Amorim’s are currently terrible. A Manchester derby win, in normal years, would buy him months of goodwill from supporters and owners alike. But this is not a normal year for City and United’s win at the Etihad has been eclipsed by being knocked out of the League Cup and the fiasco against Bournemouth. Amorim had not lost a home game in his last 18 months at Sporting. He has lost two in his last two with United. Oh, and Amorim has fewer points from his first six league games than Erik ten Hag had from his last six.
2: Marcus Rashford
The Rashford situation seems to have hit an impasse with the England striker left out of the match-day squad for the last three games for reasons Amorim will describe only as “selection” related. The manager insists there is no disciplinary aspect to the star’s omission but, every passing week, the situation becomes more of a problem and the issue more of an issue! Gary Neville had already warned it is in danger of becoming a distraction. We may already be past that point. “It’s my decision,” said Amorim, “and it always will be. It is selection. I want to see the best of my players and I try different things with different players. That’s my focus.”
Ruben Amorim gives Marcus Rashford instructions on the touchline
Marcus Rashford has been left out of Amorim’s last three match-day squads
3: The fall of Ashworth
Amorim may have known it was coming, or even sanctioned it, but the dismissal of Dan Ashworth as sporting director sent shockwaves throughout Old Trafford and football in general. It hardly spoke of a well-run organisation, even if it showed new co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe is not afraid to take bold decisions. It was hardly the sort of stable base from which Amorim will have wanted to reinvent United.
4: Supporter depression
United fans have been largely supportive, and patient, despite more than a decade of frustrations post-Sir Alex Ferguson but Amorim was quick to note after Bournemouth that such patience is wearing thin. There has been nothing but unequivocal support for the young coach since his arrival but Rashford has felt the harsh realities of underperforming for the club and others are in, or heading towards, similar territory. The dissatisfaction seems, more than anything, to be aimed at Ratcliffe, and especially his cost-cutting measures that have led to 250 redundancies and a rise in ticket prices. Little wonder that Amorim admitted he felt the “anxiety” from the first minute against Bournemouth.
5: Square pegs into round defensive holes
Amorim is a man with a plan; specifically one plan and one plan only. This season was always going to be an interesting exercise in fitting United’s squad into his 3-4-3 system, rather than Amorim hitting on a system to best suit his squad. All well and good, but none of the defenders he has tried in his back three have looked comfortable there consistently, possibly because ….
6 … And no wing-backs
Amorim’s three-at-the-back system requires specialist wing-backs outside them and United currently have a squad with precisely none of those in their ranks. There have been moments when players have looked capable in those jobs and Diogo Dalot has battled gamely on both flanks but until Amorim can bring in, or develop, specialists to fulfil those tasks, it looks like being an Achilles heel for his system.
Diogo Dalot
Defender Diogo Dalot has featured on both flanks for United this season
7: Set-pieces
Defending set-pieces was bad under Ten Hag and, somehow, become worse under the new man, despite spending several minutes in every warm-up going through defensive drills designed to focus players on their jobs. Amorim has been limited in his time on the training ground since taking over but he is right about one thing – the responsibility for this particular failure begins and ends with him. Set-pieces – both attacking and defending – are usually the sign of a well-drilled and well-coached team. United are certainly not that at present. Amorim leaped to the defence of set-piece coach Carlos Fernandes after the Bournemouth capitulation. “The responsibility of everything is me, is not Carlos, it’s on me,” said Amorim. “We didn’t lose because of set-pieces. We lost because we create more chances and we didn’t score. It’s a difficult moment but the responsibility is me, not Carlos.”
8: Goals
Yes United’s attacking players are still creating chances, even without Rashford in the side, but finishing, or a lack of it, is becoming a real headache. Bruno Fernandes had three good chances in the last five minutes of the first half alone to equalise against Bournemouth and, after going 3-0 down, Rasmus Hojlund and Alejandro Garnacho both missed good opportunities. Hojlund appeared to have made progress in this department in recent weeks but is clearly still far from the finished article. Without him, who is going to repeat the feat performed by Rashford who scored 30 times two seasons ago?
Rasmus Hojlund
Rasmus Hojlund has made progress but is far from the finished article
9: Goalkeepers
It may seem low on his list of priorities, but an increasingly anxious – to use the manager’s word – fanbase is clearly unconvinced by André Onana. Amorim was quick to note that, from the first time he had the ball at his feet at the start of the Bournemouth match, the tension among the home fans was almost tangible and transmitted not only around the stadium but around the United players. Altay Bayindir’s performance against Spurs in the cup in midweek told us he is not the answer which leaves another big question mark hovering over a key place in Amorim’s squad. Amorim said: “You can feel it not just the players, the fans. In the first goal kick with André Onana, he’s thinking what to do and push the other guys and everybody is so anxious. At this moment, everybody in the club is tired of these moments. We have to face it and focus on the next game. We know what to do, we have to address a lot of things but we are ready to do it.”
10: The potential for transfer business – or a lack of it
Amorim will have known, coming in, that his hands will be tied by financial fair play limitations, and the club’s general lack of spending power under Ratcliffe currently. More tellingly, how is Amorim going to offload players whom he decides have no future at the club who are, in most cases, on inflated and over-extended contracts? There seems no more future for Antony under Amorim than there was under Ten Hag but the problems of moving on such players remain sizeable. If Amorim dreams of rebuilding United according to his vision, it may be a longer process than he, or anyone connected with the club, would wish.
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