Why Man Utd cannot thrive with ‘poor coach’ Ruben Amorim formation

Manchester United can never dominate with a formation made for counter-punchers for reasons outlined in full here.

But mostly the Mailbox is intent on telling us how terrible Football365 is.

Maybe watch England tonight (yes, really) and send your thoughts to theeeditor@football365.com

IATA

Well that’s me told, I guess IATA. Long suspected as much.
Aidan, Lfc (in response to Mark, mate turned up 5 mins after kick off and wife 25, I stood until guy left at half time)

No, Man Utd cannot thrive with this formation

As a riposte to Ian, and a counterpoint for you George, no, 3-4-3/5-3-2 won’t be a good (or really great, which should be the target) formation for United, unless you have a very limited view of what you want United to be able to do.

There’s countless good videos and articles on this (Athletic, Coaches Voice etc) but with an oversimplification, any formation that emphasises 3 at the back and two wingbacks is really a better out-of-possession than in-possession style team. If you want your team to be a smart counter-puncher prioritising quick turnovers and attacks, then it can be good, if you tailor your squad to that specific tactic. Oliver Glasner’s Crystal Palace are the best current incarnation of this.

What this formation doesn’t give you however is an abundance of on-ball creation/high possession – in effect you sacrifice some midfield creativity to get that extra CB in, and in many cases, you now rely on your WBs to either provide the crucial width, or sometimes be the ones popping up in the half spaces in front of the boxes. Now they could be quite creative in their own right (Frimpong at Bayer) but they’re still not true attacking players, so when facing a set defence, they’re unlikely to offer the attacking threat of a dedicated winger/forward – they need to be in a mismatch situation.

There are two notable exceptions – Conte’s Chelsea and Alonso’s Bayer – but both of those were a) one off seasons exploiting unique situations and b) successfully countered by the following season/underwent serious regression.

Assuming you want United to dominate in a similar vein to the most successful teams of the last 30 years in the PL, you want to be consistently controlling possession, having the best attacking talent getting space in dangerous areas and generating high value chances whilst limiting them at the back. Even with the slight shift towards increased verticality in the PL this season, the better teams are clearly still prioritising controlling the midfield with men and quality.

Now, clearly if you have flexibility within your formation (ultimately what made Alonso’s Bayer work was the sheer unpredictability of where any given player would be with their great passing interchanges) that can overcome some of these problems, but what makes Amorim such a poor coach (at this point) is both his formational AND tactical rigidity – he doesn’t just play the same structure, but within that structure plays the same way, making him exceptionally predictable.

There are other elements (smaller pool of specialists that excel at these formations means less talent at a higher price point available to purchase) which IMO prevent 3-4-3 from establishing itself fully, but yeah in essence, more good attacking players having the ball often, and in better areas really should be United’s modus operandi, and 3-4-3 ain’t that.
Tom (also, Ian, that Liverpool team were… not that good) Leyton

READ: Bruno Fernandes still the most creative player in the Premier League

No pop at Bukayo Saka intended

Lads, you need to stop being so delicate. When I was remarking on the “top goal scorers for England by club” – and I’ll say this simply so you don’t misunderstand – it wasn’t a dig at your Starboy, or even Arsenal. Why would I? That total is only 5 less than Rashford had scored by the same age. It’s very solid!

Truth is, Arsenal were pretty much inconsequential to the point; the prompt not the subject.

More apropos, I remain amazed that Liverpool didn’t have a higher scoring top scorer considering their 80s dominance but I guess too many Scots and Welsh. And while United have a couple of good entries, really Rooney is an Everton success (we didn’t make him great, just gave him the platform), just as Sterling was at City and Lampard at Chelsea.

One commenter at least grasped the point, and he was right that we play more games – (generally, thanks to additional money making tournaments) and specifically against relatively weaker opponents – and get further in competitions compared to the past.

As an aside, I really wish I’d been alive to see Dixie Dean; man must have been a beast! 18 in 16 internationals, and 349 in 399 in the league! That’s some crazy stuff. And, weirdly, looked like Tevez.

Maybe someone can delight the mailbox with the spread for another nation, particularly France (might smooth some ruffled feathers).
Badwolf

(Poor old Cole, Fowler and Wright tbh – they all deserved better)

What Scotland need

To Steve Mills in the Monday morning mailbox.

That’s all very well and good if head-to-head is the first tie-breaker. At least according to Wikipedia, it’s goal difference.

So under your very valid assumptions of Denmark beating Belarus and Scotland not beating Greece by 6+, we’ll need at least a draw against Greece and then beat Denmark to qualify.
Andy, DC

A long mail to tell us that Football365 is sh*t

Come on now, it makes sense if you loosen up a little and go with the flow. Perhaps missing the word ‘that’ at the end threw you off but – ‘More like THAT Ed’… as in, please post more entries like that of Ian HK instead of yawnfest politics from all these ideal human beings..

Now, to get posted I obviously had to include a political reference, hence the relevant re-interpretation of MAGA to reference the abundance of adverts on the modern version of F365 (insert heated discussion point for a sports website and excellent click driver = posted) . Advert365, if it needs an explanation, because there are literally more ads now than illegal streaming websites on this once hallowed site and advert365 has a better ring than politicalopinion365.

Before you say pay, the quality of journalism has to be worth the money and it isn’t here anymore.

On to the overall topic and reason for the lols, if it was hard to tell, was the absurdity of Ian’s post, essentially – ‘Amorim should follow a manager who won fuck all 30 years ago but did give us the spice boy era’… oh yeah, and it’s obvious apparently.

Like all entertaining things, the best bit is towards the end – Mount and de Ligt as DMs, Bruno taking penalty advice (90% Bruno Penandes!) from someone who didn’t really score/take many and missed a few, buy a RWB! All absurd points which would be mildly humorous if the email was satirical but it seems deadly serious. Topped off by the I-love-the-smell-of-my-own-shit, ‘it’s not that hard, we can all see it’…..*

That line takes it to comedy gold territory and frankly a nice change for the mailbox.

Between drowning in adverts, top 10 sack lists and 5 articles an hour that say 95% of the exact same word-for-word clickbait shit bar the last paragraph…. Ian HK finally made me crack a smile when attempting to read this site on my phone. (it’s really just muscle memory coming back to F365 at this stage but the gaps between are sadly getting bigger, RIP).

SO in summary, save the website and give Ian his own dedicated column where he uses his unique approach to fix every team. He/She/Them can’t be worse than the current roster of journalists (lol).
Moses
(when the explanation is twice the length of the original ditty, maybe you have a point. F365 is still shit now though, bring it back!!!)

*Actually it’s defensive midfielders we need and that’s what everyone can see, which ironically makes it strange why Amorim did not….and Ian sorry, I’m just using you as a vehicle to tell the editors how shit the site is these days.

Shit I tells ya.

And another one…

In the main, the left wing leanings of f365 are a welcome reprieve from the tub-thumping ravings of The Sun, Mirror and particularly The Daily Mail. We should’ve long since outgrown much of their nationalistic guff. The best part of The Guardian’s social attitudes are worthy. A commitment to disingenuousness is the trap f365 now needs to navigate.

It started life with the Neville versus The Flag commentary. I think we can all agree The Right are now in control of the Union Flag. Why? Because national pride has long-since been sneered at by The Left. And now the scramble of both own and disown the Union Flag is underway. The only way to own the flag from The Right is to invoke a sense of national pride. Not to call people Gammons. Take it back again and learn from the failed strategy of steering and snide sniping.

To disagree is some of any part of either sides position does not make them a lefty looney or a gammon. I have to admit I don’t like the word gammon. To refer to someone as a pig due to the colour of their skin x their political leanings seems a bit off. Seems a bit smug. Represents those left wing traits that see it fail and see the Farages of this world fill the gap.

Then on to the ‘what happens when England fans stop being bored?’ column. Firstly, have you been to college football? It’s carnage. Utter mayhem. There is excessive drinking, property damage, fisticuffs. The whole experience. It would come as no surprise to any American that bedlam pursues sporting events like lies to a columnist. None of this touched upon. Similarly, the isolation of such troubles to England fans is a wilful misrepresentation of the reality. As things stand, football trouble is rife all over the world, from the stabby streets of Rome to the riotous banlieu of Paris. Let’s not touch on South American rivalry or Eastern Europeans training in combat before games. England fans are enriched by some real scummers for home Danny Dyer is keeping the old value alive. But football games around the world, at both national and club level, is a violent affair.

Maybe there is some sense of shame to seeing England fans act like hooligans has merit. I equally shudder when European games feature monkey chants, often at their own players. Maybe it’s time to step away from football altogether.

All of this lack of nuance is peak Guardian who see what they want to see so long as their narrative is supported. (And if f365’s stance was equally as disingenuous to a right wing stance I’d be calling you all out on being the Fox News/Daily Mail of football sites).

Providing a football narrative that is socially balanced and enriched by social values is brilliant. Keep it up. But please don’t become the Huffington Post. If you do then the message will be lost and you’ll be the fools calling half the population a ‘basket of deplorable’.

Being English, as being anyone, comes with sources of baggage and pride. Let’s keep an eye on both, shall we.
Alexander Tovey