Reports suggest that Ruben Amorim may be sacked soon - so who should replace him as Manchester United manager?
With speculation that Amorim could be fired mounting after another dismal defeat in Sunday’s Manchester Derby, more and more attention is turning to the question of who might succeed him – and a mixed bag of names has risen to the top of the oddsmakers’ lists, ranging from Gareth Southgate to Oliver Glasner to Mauricio Pochettino.
It’s a scattered list which suggests that nobody truly knows who Ineos would appoint should the need arise – but there is one manager in the running who might just fit the bill.
What Ruben Amorim’s mistakes tell us about what Manchester United need in a new manager
Ever since he took charge last November, Amorim has demonstrated a pig-headed unwillingness to adapt his tactics or methods to the squad at his disposal. There is plenty of blame due elsewhere, with players and transfers just as culpable for United’s failings as the coach, but Amorim has done little to help the situation by sticking blindly to a system which doesn’t suit his players in the slightest.
United are currently stuck trying to crowbar progressive midfielders such as Bruno Fernandes and Kobbie Mainoo into a holding role, for example, due to a team that has been built piecemeal rather than to serve a unified tactical vision. What United need, as much as anything else, is a coach whose philosophy aligns with the players available.
For instance, there is little point in appointing a manager who wants to operate with a high defensive line to condense the pitch. Too few of United’s centre-halves have the speed to handle balls over the top of the press resistance and technical quality to maintain possession under pressure in dangerous areas. Players like Matthijs de Ligt and Harry Maguire are at their best when not asked to cover vast swathes of pitch and are given room to breathe on the ball.
Similarly, the midfielders on United’s books would suit a coach who is comfortable playing with a relatively compact midfield three. Mainoo was excellent under Erik ten Hag when asked to carry the ball shorter distances and cover less ground, for example, while Casemiro’s legs don’t allow him to cover large swathes of the pitch.
There’s an obvious tension there – a defence which needs to play deeper and a midfield which will play better in a crowded space, and that speaks to the lack of thought that has gone into United’s transfer work over the course of many years. However, it’s possible to at least find a manager who wants to play with a system that brings those poles slightly closer together. Amorim seems determined to ask half of his team to play against type, and the results have been rather inevitable.
If Amorim is replaced, United would likely be best served avoiding the appointment of a coach who wants to play with an especially aggressive high line, or a manager who needs his midfielders to chew up half of the field as Amorim demands. That would, perhaps, rule out one of the most exciting names on the list – Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola, who increasingly looks like one of Europe’s best young coaches.
Perhaps he would be good enough and flexible enough in his playing style that he could bridge the gap between players and tactics, but United are better served by appointing a head coach whose ideology reflects the squad at their disposal from the start, and making life rather easier on themselves. That’s one of the mistakes they made in appointing Amorim, who reportedly told Ineos that he would not compromise his methods – a red flag that should have been recognised as such.
Why United might need Gareth Southgate to be their next manager
Of course, tactics aren’t the only issue with Amorim’s reign, and if United are ever to return to those heady days on top of the Premier League table, then they need a coach who can blow the bad atmosphere out of the dressing room.
Prior to Ten Hag’s spell in charge, the press was filled was rumours about persistent toxicity in the dressing room and it’s hard not to wonder whether that lingers. Players are still seeing their careers derail at Old Trafford, effort levels among the squad remain a concern, and watching the entire squad avoiding each other’s eyes before the penalty shootout defeat to Grimsby Town seemed to indicate a squad containing players who didn’t like each other or have any real leadership.
Amorim’s response to that specific situation, of course, was to crouch in the corner of the dugout and avert his eyes. It’s fair to say that United need someone with a proven track record of lifting a dressing room and of rallying their troops around them.
That doesn’t necessarily mean a bellicose drill-sergeant type – although that could work – just someone who commands respect, who knows how to motivate his players and help them through their problems, and not a coach who appears to bury their head in the sand when they need to be guided through a problem.
They also need a manager who can handle the owners – or, more specifically, minority owners Ineos, who are in charge of the club’s day-to-day affairs, and who appear to have demonstrated a certain degree of cluelessness in their approach to the transfer market.
They need a coach who can deal with the Byzantine internal politics of a club which always seems to find a fresh way to generate negative headlines, and a coach who can adapt his ideas to whichever group of players are bought on their behalf next summer, or the summer after that. This is a club that direly needed a midfielder or two but bought three attackers instead when they already had Fernandes. It’s going to take a manager with a lot of patience to get results, and someone who can handle intense scrutiny while they navigate everything going on around them.
Glasner may be a fine head coach, but has a battering-ram approach to diplomacy which has cost him jobs before and which could see him rub Ineos up the wrong way quite quickly. Pochettino is easy to get along with but his track record since leaving Spurs, especially with the United States national team, inspires little confidence.
So maybe, just maybe, Southgate is actually the right man for this job. His players respond to him, he’s used to pulling a team of disparate players which isn’t sympathetically designed for him together, he is happy playing a 4-3-3 formation which doesn’t emphasis a high line or high press, and he’s an adept politician used to the harsh glare of the spotlight. Compared to the England job, United is probably a piece of cake.
He also happens to be available, something which isn’t true of any of the other names apparently at the top of the bookmakers’ lists. Of course, he’s also an eminently sensible man – and it’s debatable whether a coach with little to prove and an abundance of rational sense would even take the United job these days. Perhaps we’ll find out.
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