Mason Mount set to usurp Bruno Fernandes at Man Utd: The Ruben Amorim winners and losers

Will Ford
Mount Ugarte Amorim Fernandes De Ligt Man Utd
Who are the Man Utd winners and losers after Ruben Amorim's appointment?

Ruben Amorim is the new Manchester United manager and if the Red Devils players have seen or read anything about his teams whatsoever, they will now be well aware that they are set to play 3-4-3.

Who are the winners and losers with that new system in mind? We’ve got you covered.

 

Winners

Manuel Ugarte
What a relief. A man whose career has been on a downward trajectory since leaving the comfort of Sporting under the guidance of Amorim is now reunited with the coach who got the very best out of him. Quite the stroke of good fortune.

Bought to fill the Manchester United donut, Ugarte’s been a jar of jam in proximity to a Krispy Kreme through his time at Old Trafford so far. But he made more tackles and interceptions (179) than any other player in the Portuguese top flight in the 2022/2023 season as Amorim’s midfield destroyer.

In a double pivot with a more forward-thinking creator like Kobbie Mainoo, fight and energy are the qualities required of Ugarte, and Amorim knows the Uruguayan can deliver.

 

Harry Maguire
Three at the back, you say? No Manchester United centre-back is as well versed in a back three as Maguire, who thrived between John Stones and Kyle Walker for England in what were arguably some of his best ever performances for club or country.

Just as Sporting excelled with Liverpool legend Sebastian Coates flanked by young and speedy talents Ousmane Diomande and Goncalo Inacio, don’t be surprised if Amorim opts for Maguire as the experienced leader in the middle for United, with this system one that can hide his flaws, like his speed and turning circle, while bringing his qualities – his physicality, aerial prowess and passing range – to the fore.

 

Mason Mount
From having no position in the team to having his ideal role ready and waiting for him, there may well be no Manchester United player more delighted by Ten Hag’s sack and Amorim’s arrival than Mount.

Ten Hag brought Mount in from Chelsea with a view to playing him and Bruno Fernandes ahead of Casemiro, and when that plan was binned after a couple of games because it was and was always going to be a disaster, Mount looked set for a life of brief cameos at the end of the few games when Fernandes was deemed too knackered to carry on. On the rare occasions he wasn’t watching from the treatment table, that is.

He’s never been more effective than he was when Chelsea played with three centre-backs under Thomas Tuchel and Mount played as one of two inverted wingers. It was with that system – almost identical to Amorim’s – that Chelsea won the Champions League in 2021, with Mount brilliant throughout that run, before he got 11 goals and ten assists the following season in the same role.

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Losers

Bruno Fernandes
There are some who believe that Bruno Fernandes is more a hindrance than a help, which is easy to say in a season when the goals and assists have dried up, but we may soon see whether Manchester United are better off without their captain as it’s hard to see how their creator-in-chief can fit into the new system.

Amorim wants his wingers to be mobile and direct, picking the ball up in the half spaces and running at defenders. That’s not Fernandes. And while the new manager wants one of his two midfielders in the double pivot to have more creative influence than the other, the name of the game in the middle of the park is to destroy and progress the ball rather than always looking for killer passes.

Fernandes likes to roam and that’s everything Amorim stands against, with the inverted wingers and two deeper midfielders having very specifically laid-out positions, forming a box shape behind the central striker that doesn’t allow for a mercurial No.10 to do whatever they please.

 

Matthijs de Ligt
Never looked comfortable when Julian Nagelsmann experimented with a back three at Bayern Munich and was dropped one game into the 2022 World Cup by Louis van Gaal owing to his fallibility in the same system. Just as a back three is made for Maguire, it’s something close to kryptonite for De Ligt.

 

Marcus Rashford
With Mount the big winner there’s got to be a loser among the forwards and while Rashford at his best was a dribbling menace, it wasn’t necessarily in tight spaces that he excelled and where he would likely be doing much of his work under Amorim, but rather very wide, one-on-one with full-backs.

If Alejandro Garnacho is a specialist in anything it’s dribbling through crowds and it’s also easy to see Amad Diallo flourishing in those positions with his close control.

We’ve come up with five ways to fix a broken Marcus Rashford, and may just now have persuaded ourselves that his best option would be either the third or fourth option.