The Man Utd thread (3)

I think with United you’ll find that the coaches who were brought into implement their particular system were the ones who failed the most (rangnick and Amorim)

I don’t think Amorim is a bad manager. Infact far from it. His problem is that he refuses to adapt. That tendency does tend to be not that big a factor if the club goes all in with the manager and supports him reasonably well.

United got Amorim into the team with a full motley crew of players brought under various managers. Those players are difficult to shift out. Forget bringing in the new players.

Managing this United team is very difficult. More so for a young manager. We’ve seen it before with villas boas as well (to a much lesser extent).

The club is rotten from the ground up. It needs a complete overhaul from the academy to the scouting apart from the first team.

I do think Amorim will get some sort of a coherent system happening. United do seem to pick themselves up for the bigger teams. Whether that will be enough to save him is another matter. But at this point , he’s looking burned out 3 games into the new season and that can’t be good for him.

There were several of us from very early on arguing the “he doesnt have the players he needs to suit his system” was a red herring. There was so little evidence for what his system was, so liitle coherence about how so many CL caliber players were so unsuited to it and what was needed in their place.

The reality was he had come to over rate the value of his brand of football and his special ability to implement it. And when he quickly found himself out of his depth the easy answer to turn to was that he didnt have the right type of players. But lets remember, Klopp, another “systems manager” turned a Liverpool side around with such square pegs in round holes like the relatively immobile Emre Can in a pressing midfield, Klavan playing in a high line, a hobbled Sturridge up top.

2 Likes

Sure. But no one is saying he’s Klopp. Klopp came into the English game with a wealth of experience including getting Mainz up to the Bundesliga , then getting relegated with them as well (say this because the failure quite often builds character too). Getting Dortmund to be relevant in European football.

Amorim doesn’t have that experience. It’s not his fault. Neither is he as good a manager as Klopp. Not even close to.

But I’ve seen his sporting sides and also some limited play by his United team (when the players are arsed to perform) to know that he’s got ideas with him. It might be easier to implement those ideas with people like Milner , Henderson & Bobby more than it is to implement those ideas with overpaid divas like Bruno. Not to mention the other dross that United has accumulated over the years.

He was hired to be manchester united manager because they thought he was the best available manager in Europe. Klopp IS the standard for whether this appointment is successful. And he is not only not that, he’s actually pretty mediocre.

You are assuming that the United Board had a clue on who they wanted to hire.

They hired him because he was the next option after Tuchel refused the job.

Presumably, they thought that the fact that he was interviewed by the Liverpool team was enough. There would be other more pragmatic managers. McKenna even. They didn’t do their research on Amorim and on why Liverpool refused him. Wasn’t to do with his managerial skills. What was said is that they didn’t find it worth their while to shift the entire team to accomodate his playing style.

Amorim was being talked about as a successor to Pep at City as well.

You don’t get that reputation without being good at your job. City’s scouting team rarely gets their signings wrong too.

What point are you even arguing?

He is a Manchester United manager. There is a base level expectation of him being competitive and anything less than that is a failure. The fact they may not know what they are doing does not change that is what the expectation for hiring him was and the bar against which he is being measured. My point is he cannot live up to that not just because Utd as a club is further gone than they all understand, but because he isnt actually very good. His success prior to this has been a mirage. He has over interpreted the value of his brand of football and the reality it dies not translate to this level of competition and no number of new players will change that.

1 Like

Just saying it’s a bit harsh to call him a fraud and a scam when he beat City quite comprehensively with his sporting side last season.

I understand that some transfers don’t work out. This could just be one of them.

I just think he is a fairly limited manager, I don’t even mind if he’s gone by the time we play them as he seemed to get results out of those games were others haven’t.

I said they’ve slowly morphed into Everton. As for I don’t want them to sack him they might get someone good in, they’ve been doing that for 13 years.

The way they dealt with the whole ETH situation and hiring this guy shows how incredibly inept they are.

I could see the sense in Glasner. He’s a good manager and he might feel a bit short-changed at Palace having lost Eze and likely Guehi. They are a well run, solid mid table team, but that’s about as good as it will ever get if they keep losing players.

So Glasner might back himself to be the one to start to get a bit of a tune out of Man Utd, if Amorim departs.

Much as I don’t like them, I look at their squad and think they should be finishing around the Europa level in the Prem. Glasner must surely think that is doable, and relative to the cloud that is descending over the club, that would represent good progress.

I have not seen Man Utd since the opening game, just some highlights. I am a bit surprised at the funk they are in, so soon, as I thought their game against Arsenal showed they had some real reasons to be hopeful. Although they lost it, they acquitted themselves well, and another day they could easily have taken the points.

It was a bit of a hard luck story, but I thought they would kick on and instead they went backwards in the second league game, and then a disastrous result against Grimsby has them questioning everything again.

It shows how mentally fragile they are.

In many ways it very much looks like a poisoned chalice, but they still have the players, the name, and the money, to be an attractive proposition for someone like Glasner. If he goes there he will get more of a tune out of them, perhaps all the way to Europa qualification.

Obviously it’s not where they dream of being, but it would be solid. For now.

https://x.com/Jimmyyy_____/status/1960832114527756397

Edit

The comments :joy::rofl:

2 Likes

Entirely possible he might do well, or it’s entirely possible he’s doing well at a reasonable size club. Thomas Frank though it’s early days has shown the ability to step up. But he did spend an awful lot of time at Brentford. I’m wary of the way some managers move.

Remember Klopp was at his clubs for sizeable lengths of time.

1 Like

Far far too soon.

O Ruben, we hardly knew ye.

2 Likes

You also have to remember that’s coming from Man Utd who always seem to inflate their own sense of position.

Anyone feel the Danish Haaland will end up back in the side under the new guy and Sesko ends up in the reserves.

If they hadnt bought a bunch of 10s and werent so committed to this dumb shape, there is a pretty good argument for playing Hojlund behind Sesko.

2 Likes

Im not sure why he’s been completely shunted out considering they’ve decided to only play Sesko from the bench. Both Cunha and Mbeumo on paper are a step up from Gnarcho and whoever they’ve had but I’ve watched them twice now and it’s the same situation as last year. They did create a lot but finish poorly with no end product. Watch Fulham and Arsenal games. I remember that Maninoo lad making Nunez misses look 50/50 chances at best.

It’s exactly the same, you can ignore a rotated Grimsby side that comes with its own caveat.

I completely acknowledge that big clubs are big clubs. I also acknowledge that whatever this is taken to mean ebbs and flows from person to person, as well as from decade to decade.

Taking all of that into account, I am not sure any club other than Yantied is so beholden to the constant braying of We’re Manchester United…you hear it at all levels, from social media no-marks to Sky Sports.

I hear this everywhere and I’m not sure any other club does it, from Liverpool to Spurs to Arsenal, to truly odious shitcunts like Chelsea and City.

Am I dreaming?

Anyways…if I’m not dreaming, it’s that particularly stinky brand of hubris that makes all of this so goddamn hilarious.

1 Like

Wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of pundits are their fans, a lot of these guys are my age and a bit older and it was their era of success.

Mark Chapman is one but he’s actually rather even handed.

1 Like

This is amazing. There really needs to be an intervention with Neville

https://x.com/Regista10_/status/1960826957483954271

5 Likes