Rúben Amorim is a strange manager to gauge right now.
His reputation as a manager is at its lowest point in years after a disappointing 14 months in charge of Manchester United.
Yet the Portuguese coach joined the Red Devils to incredible fanfare.
He had won Sporting CP their first league title in 19 years in 2020/2021, and brought them another one in 2023/2024.
After it had been announced that he was heading to the Premier League, there was a two-week delay in when he would join.
During that time, he beat soon-to-be rivals Manchester City 4-1 in the UEFA Champions League, and the red side of the city's expectations skyrocketed.
Amorim was known as a manager committed to his three-at-the-back system (reportedly, that commitment cost him a chance to replace Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool).
He, expectedly, immediately implemented this at Old Trafford.
His tenure did have its moments.
There was a 2-1 win away at Manchester City in his first few games in charge, a 2-2 draw and 2-1 win at Anfield in consecutive seasons, they knocked Arsenal out of the FA Cup and beat them at the Emirates, and there was also the UEFA Europa League run to the final.
The bigger games never seemed to be the issue.
The majority of his time there, though, was at best tepid and featured some incredibly embarrassing moments (the EFL Cup defeat to Grimsby Town, losing to 10-man Everton at home, falling out with fan favourites Marcus Rashford and Kobbie Mainoo).
Yet the man is revered by half of Lisbon.
This Rúben Amorim tactical analysis looks at the good, the bad and the ugly of Rúben Amorim's managerial career so far, and what parallels we can draw with his experience and his upcoming venture into Italian football.
Rúben Amorim Out Of Possession Tactics
While Amorim toyed with the idea of starting with a back four towards the end of his time at Manchester United, he has (as mentioned) religiously played a back-three system, even mentioning that not even the Pope could convince him to change.
Let's start with what he wants his teams to look like and do off the ball.
His teams attack in the 3-4-2-1/3-4-3 shape we'll get into later, but his teams are a bit more flexible in terms of what they look like out of possession.
There are two common shapes that you will see from an Amorim team when defending: a 5-4-1 or a 4-4-2.
Below, from a previous Tactical Football Analysis article, we see the 5-4-1 shape in practice during his time at Sporting.
The wing-backs are asked to drop back into the defensive line, keeping a narrow shape and blocking central areas.
The central defenders (think Gonçalo Inácio at Sporting or Lisandro Martínez at Man Utd) were then asked to be 'the aggressors', jumping out to apply pressure and stop any opposition #10's or strikers from having time on the ball in between the lines.
The 4-4-2 shape looks something like we see below.
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