‘Arrogant’ Amorim decision showed he was ‘done’ at Manchester United even before his first game

Joshua Zirkzee receives some welcome praise for his mental strength, but Ruben Amorim has been slammed for his ‘arrogance’ over Ruud van Nistelrooy.

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Another United disaster
Welp that was rubbish. It’s very soul destroying to watch a team that’s so bereft of ideas and absolutely no options on the bench for a bunch of reasons. I’d say the club has reached a nadir but I’m sure they will find a way to make it worse somehow.

As for the players, I don’t know if it was because Bruno was playing in a deeper role than he prefers but he didn’t look like he was interested at all. Misplaced passes, shots he shouldn’t have taken, general apathy….sad to see our once club talisman completely unable to change anything. We all know Casemiro doesn’t have the legs anymore; he really should be moved on to free up some wages.

Dalot is simply not good enough. I think I saw him cross the ball once while Dorgu, admittedly he made some poor decisions, was playing positively and trying to add some impact from the left. Garnacho’s miss was something special. His confidence must be absolutely shot but he’s doing it to himself at this point.

On a positive note it has been a pleasure to see how Zirkzee has stepped up after that early sub. For a young man to be scapegoated and reportedly crying in the change room and then come back to play the way he is is testament to his mental strength. He holds up the ball against 2-3 defenders, nutmegging players, first time passes…I think he deserves a lot of plaudits for his comeback. Well done young man

And as much as I complain about the refereeing, the ref did in fact have a pretty good game. Admittedly there weren’t many big decisions to make but he let the game flow, called play back for fouls when necessary and he was consistent across the board. So plaudits to the man in black on that one. Hopefully it continues.

Let’s see how the rest of the season goes for us. Who doesn’t enjoy a good relegation battle. Sadness

Regards,
Disgruntled, SA

That went well
Yes Ruben. We all agree. Professional footballers must perform 100%, all the time. 100% in practice creates 100% in games. And yes, full weeks in training in February will bring the squad together and all will know your magical system.

So just to be clear, the result of 100% training this week can be summed up as Amad (out for season), Mainoo (out for a few weeks), Ugarte and Collyer (maybe back next weekend). Perhaps a pint with the lads, a chat by the water cooler or even a little horseplay doesn’t seem so bad in comparison does it?

Well, with the lowest of expectations as we headed off to Spurs there was at least the silver lining that we’d get to see the youth stars perform, and perhaps another one will step up into the senior team like Collyer has. So it was great that you gave the young lads a combined 3 minutes on the pitch. I can only imagine their excited banter on the bus home. They too feel the confidence of the Manager.

So yes Ruben.  That went well.
Prince MNC, Muskoka, Canada

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Ole is not at the wheel
So we had months and months of rival fans telling us that Ten Hag was obviously the issue and had to be replaced. That has happened, we are worse, and not one of those rival fans is talking about Amorim. Not interested? Come on everyone, our board finally listened to you, and folded to the pressure of non United fans caring about nothing other than laughing at United online. Now tell us, what next? Sack the manager again? Get a new defence? We just got 4 new ones in the last 2 windows. We should just get 8 more, no?!? Come on non United fans, why are you not writing about us anymore? Is it because you were told by United fans that Ten Hag was not the main issue and things absolutely could get worse? Or let me guess, it’s because United are shit, so why would you write about us, right? That’s the one isn’t it? We must have been absolutely mesmerizing under Ten Hag then.

Ever since we resigned Ronaldo it’s been downhill. Same happened when we got Sanchez. Ole steadied the wheel. For about half a season we were competing with City and Liverpool there. But noooooooo; a bunch of whiners online repeating ” ‘Ole’s at the wheel’ hahaha 😆 😂 😅 😜 🤣 😄 ” was more important to our board than the obvious Ronaldo shaped issue in the team. Most United fans saw it. Most of the ones that didn’t were Ronaldo fans first, United fans second. We had seen it with Sanchez before.

A team full of players playing on vibes, was actually doing very good and improving. Vibe players performing under Mourinho?! Incredible. Yet it was working until Sanchez showed up, they all downed tools since someone can just come in, play shit, get paid more and keep playing shit as Rashford and Martial, during their best season (I would say Rashford was just as good that season as he was in Ten Hags first) sat on the bench. With Ronaldo it was a bit different, since he wasn’t playing shit, all the other players just dumped all the responsibility on him, and he was just immobile. If you are too slow for seria A, you are too slow for the premier league. But wasn’t that the issue with Lukaku though? He wasn’t mobile enough right? Those were the comments I remember. Except Ole wanted to keep him, just not necessarily starting as a 9, but he was done with the abuse. Too big, too slow, too much of a fridge/wardrobe/tanker/whatever meaningless, offensive cliche people could come up with. Lukaku might not be Messi but Maguire he is not, and even he has proven that one can do a job without being an extra agile Usain Bolt. So we replaced him (Lukaku) with someone completely immobile, who had always had a team of world class players around him. 👍 !

Our recruitment has been the issue for at least a decade. We couldn’t even recruit Herrera when he played for us and wanted to stay. We are just gonna keep signing duds until someone (or multiple people) that actually cares about the club and not just their personal career, is given at least 3 years of freedom and license to make any decisions they feel that need to be made, and is allowed to make multiple glaring mistakes as well. Otherwise we are gonna keep getting rinsed by all of Europe, all of the time.

I personally thought Amorim was done once he didn’t keep Nistelrooy. Not because Ruud has proven himself to be a great coach, but because he has proven he is not bad, and we all know that he cares about United. He also proved that by coming out and saying he wants to work under Amorim. More importantly, how arrogant is Amorim to think that he doesn’t need the help. Never coached at that level, league, country or environment, but he doesn’t need someone who is a legend of the game here and was showing decent coaching skills too. Crazy. I actually saw it as a lack of character from Amorim. He just needed to show Ruud who’s boss since obviously Nistelrooy would take the main job if given the chance. Guess what Ruben, if anyone in your coaching team does not want your job, they don’t have the minerals.

I hope I am wrong, but when my brother told me that Ruud was getting released, I told him that the next 2 years will be proper bad. May be Amorim still has a trick up his sleeve to prove me wrong. (Hoilund and Zirkzee in defense, Maguire #10, Martinez and De Ligt strikers? Just invert it all)
Zdravko (Ps. If Bruno comes out of this and manages to start dragging us along again then he absolutely is super human.)

The joy of Cesc
I know he is only 17, and I know it is his breakout season, and it could all go wrong, but there is something very Fabregas-y about Ethan Nwaneri. He is the first player since the Spaniard that I remember feeling this way about. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Emile Smith Rowe, and I would die for Saka, but Ethan has an aura that neither of those players had. He is still legally a child, and yet he is bullying men far older than him, and he has a sureness in his own ability which was exactly what Cesc had.

I know lots of Arsenal fans fell out of love with Cesc, but not me. He was fantastic for Arsenal, and if you aren’t old enough, you will not know what he was like. I remember watching him in the Champions League as a nipper, against Juve I believe, and he dominated players many years his senior. He carried himself with complete confidence in himself, and I see the same in Ethan. I’d go further, you can see the work he does in training, his efficiency of movement, his Saka esque consistency of delivery, kids got it all.

I think that is what truly generational players do. Age becomes irrelevant, and you just see the player. It could all go wrong, we’ve all seen wunderkinds crash and burn, but it seems like Ethan has the right people around him to ensure he rises to the very top. As an Arsenal fan, I’m so excited.
John Matrix AFC 

Not played anyone good yet
Don’t think I can get away with Wolverhampton Wanderers being in a category of ‘they were at their best’ when Liverpool played them nor Everton for that matter, however Man City can get into it . After spending the budget of Djibouti in the January sales, dropping the awfully off the boil Bernardo suddenly they are going to be a right handful for Sunday’s battle of the Pharaohs.

Then a team who are also totally getting their act together and hence need avoiding are Saint Germain. I suppose there is a one in 4 chance of Liverpool drawing the Parisiens and they now have Kvaratshelia too.

There could be a collapse  of English clubs before even the quarter final stage. If ever Arsenal need to be ready to take advantage of a brutal dip it might be now hence I love the idea of Benny Blanco (actually he’s cheshire orange but anyhow) playing as a target man.

Gentlemen , we have a title race !
Peter (Luis Enrique quietly doing great) Andalucia.

An update
A while ago I asked the Mailbox who was their favourite player ever, their favourite Premier League player ever, and what was their favourite goal ever. I went first and said Ronaldinho, Jay Jay Okocha, and Kaka for Milan against Man Utd.

I want to change my answers…

Kaoru Mitoma, Kauro Mitoma, and Kauro Mitoma against Chelsea. Glorious.
Danny, Brighton 

Football’s continual (r)evolution
The point about tactics and verbiage related to modern possession football being insufferable when thrown out as word salad by football ‘tacticos’ in Johnny’s big man article is entirely valid, but there is far more than a shade of throwing the baby out with the bathwater to the conclusions about ‘x style of football being dead’.

Even though the language of football might have new words for plain spoken concepts (vertical passing – long ball, scanning – looking) the point of them being given specific rather than general language is in the process of metricising and pulling apart the mechanics of football. You can say ‘punting it to the big man’ is your level of detail and you need nothing more, but which player does it, from which angle and which depth on the pitch, what state the defence of the team you’re playing against is in is all relevant to the coach and player in question, definitely at the top levels of the game but increasingly down the pyramid too.

Now, clearly for the romanticist, we’ve lost you right away. But data driven approaches to football are a primary tool of coaches who do lead success and redefine how football is organised in every area off the pitch, and most of the areas on it. So if you want it gone, you have to accept the Gerrard’s, Lampard’s and Rooney’s of the world as your coaches, looking on baffled as quietly spoken Basque men steal their lunch money.

Furthermore even a ‘return to x tactic’ is more a conscious, measured and data driven/strategic approach than a ‘take this, you pack of weird nerds’ approach. With the return to the big man ‘breaking’ modern possession football, we get onto the interesting notion of cyclical natures of sport and competitive advantage.

If you forgive a deviation to a different sport, in American Football we are starting to see in the last few seasons a big revision in the NFL to the run game, after many years of passing supremacy, including some coaches digging out formations that wouldn’t look out of place in 1970s high school games.

To slightly oversimplify why this is happening, coaches who have the confidence and talent to recognise that defences have been prioritising lighter, smaller defenders to keep up with pass heavy offences now lack the players to stop heavy bruising runners and schemes (plus there is a price differential advantage where you can get cheaper running back talent and road grade guards, whilst pass catchers and elite pass blockers come at a big premium wagewise). So they exploit a competitive advantage with good coaching augmented by smart scouting and player recruitment.

Now what will happen is these plans and ideas will over time be diluted, run by less talented people and the next tactical ‘innovation’, which is as likely to be an old element tweaked as an entirely new one, will be found to exploit this new world and so on.

In football, something similar with wing backs being asked to play higher up the pitch or tuck in, CBs often being left in more space and 1 on 1 defending and GKs being prized for footwork as much as physicality has led to a lighter, smaller, more mobile CB being more highly prized (I remember when Vermalen was laughed out the shop on coming to the league).

So it isn’t a surprise a taller, more physical CF ‘could’ have a greater degree of success, especially if they’re only played on occasion so offer something different.

But ultimately possession football is underpinned (when done well) by the ‘create high value chances, deny high value chances, make your opposition work more than you, retain fitness and sharpness’ that will win you more games over the season over a longer period of time versus other strategies that either create an artificial ceiling on success or can have purple patches, but will deviate to the mean – Nottingham Forest haven’t found some cheat code, they’ve just been remarkably efficient, which isn’t that sustainable.

When it is really challenged (Alonso’s Bayer, gegenpressing) it is usually by equally intricate and structured responses which try and exploit weaknesses as creatively as possible.

So yeah, football at the top level is now lost to the pure ‘go out there and get stuck in lads’ crowd, sorry, not sorry. And indeed, the fact that it is, but we’re still stuck with a lot of ex-pros who barely realise this, is what makes modern punditocracy so bad, which is definitely a complaint raised many many times.

Now, it’s definitely not lost to the ‘lads, it’s Tottenham’ aspect (the mental side of the game is as critical as ever).

But if you’re saying that this ‘knock it to the big lad’ is somehow a repudiation of the ‘modern’ form of football, rather than a renewal of the concept using modern thinking, you’re drifting farther from the game, not moving closer.
Tom (there’s a great but potentially incredibly controversial article out there to be written on the link between the lack of top tier English coaches, our football culture’s ludditism/anti-intellectualism and cultural identity vs Spain’s by someone who wants to get instantly cancelled), Leyton