Covering Manchester United these days is a bit like being a character in a silent witness: each week, you end up writing a post-mortem. Their Sunday defeat in Tottenham was a engaging case if Bitty which finished 1-0 largely because the low defense quality of the defense was offset by the low level of attack. It was fun in his own way, but it didn’t look much like Premier League football.
This also meant that United fell 15th in the table, having won only four of the 14 championship games under Ruben Amorim. Under Erik Ten Hag this season, United was taking 1.22 points per game; Under Amorim, it is at 1.00. No one was fighting on the magnitude of the task he acquitted, but four months after Amorim took the job, it would be very difficult to identify the signs of concrete progress. There was the resilience of performance in the League in Anfield, in the FA Cup at the Emirates, and not much else.
In relation: Premier League: 10 discussion points for weekend action
Amad Diallo has impressed, raising other questions about the reasons why it was used if with sparingly by ten hag, but he is now absent for the season after having undergone an ankle injury in training. The departure XI on Sunday presented three players who feel like it is part of the club’s long-term future, and even it is slightly generous since Patrick Dorgu has just happened and therefore did not Not had time to be afflicted by the general discomfort. In January, United seemed willing to sell one of the other two, Alejandro Garnacho, if only as a product of the Academy, it would represent pure profit in the rules of profit and sustainability of the leagues (PSR), which would allow them to further replenish the team.
This, of course, is a large part of the AMORIM problem. The team he inherited is a mess. And although it is legitimate to wonder why Casemiro is always embarking on the midfielder of United, a glance at the Banc de United, which included eight adolescents and Victor Lindelöf, clearly indicates how Amorim had. It is now likely that United will have been undergoing his first arrival in slightest half-time since 1989-90-the season when, by the legend at least, the winner of Mark Robins in Nottingham Forest in the third round of the FA Cup kept Alex Ferguson In the work – but no one should think is the fault of anyone except the owners of the club.
This week will mark a year since Jim Ratcliffe bought a little more than a quarter of the club and the right to manage the Glazers football operations. It was welcomed by optimism; It is local and logical said that no one could be as bad as the last lot. Since then, he has imposed a multitude of cost reduction measures – a lot of mean. He deleted discounts for retirees and children and has installed a range of expensive executives. Dan Ashworth was installed as a sports director, probably to try to ensure the type of coordinated approach which was so obviously defective since the departure of Ferguson in 2013, to leave after five months, apparently to oppose the AMORIM appointment.
The 40 -year record in Portugal clearly indicates that he is a gifted coach, but that does not make him the right coach for United. He reiterated on Sunday that he will continue to play his 3-4-3, that it is a season which must almost be radiated as the players become familiar with the system. But he should know that most of this team cannot play it. He must also realize that there will be no great silver infusion to rebuild the team in summer; United is already under pressure to avoid violating PSR regulations.
Even with an equitable wind, as Gary Neville said on the podcast, it would be a huge task for Amorim to transform the tactical identity of a club that has almost never played with a rear three. And that leads to questions: how certain the hierarchy is that Morim is the right man? Defining philosophy should be a job for a sports director, who would then recruit players and coaches accordingly. The absence of such a director has been one of the biggest problems for United for more than a decade – so they name one and immediately ignore their advice.
And the wind is not fair. Fans are frustrated by the lack of progress, which on the one hand is difficult for Amorim, but on the other hand is easily understandable, given the way in which they are pressed by the club, paying for a supplement in 35 years.
The danger is that, even if Amorim is the right man, his reputation will be so tarnished at the end of the season that he will never be able to inspire the belief that successful management requires. It is a mess without easy solutions.
That day …
After losing a vote for the Ajax captain in the summer of 1973, Johan Cruyff decided that he had finished. He had won three European cuts with the Amsterdam club, but he needed to stretch his wings. While Spain softened its regulations on foreigners, Real Madrid sniffed, but it was Barcelona who jumped to bring Cruyff together with the Dutch coach who had inspired him so much in Ajax, Rinus Michels. The agreement was agreed on August 13 but which broke the Dutch regulations which indicated that all transfers should occur in July. It took two and a half months for the bureaucracy to be resolved, and Cruyff finally made its debut on October 28.
He joined a team that is just starting to find his feet after winning only one of their first five games of the season. They only lost after their first League title in 14 years. But the highest point, without a doubt, came on February 17, 1974, when Barcelona went to the Bernabéu for the Clásico. Cruyff ran the match, scoring three goals and scoring one, showing a remarkable balance and strength to beat two players on the edge of the box, while Barça won 5-0.
-
It is an extract from football with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look of the Guardian US during the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Do you have a question for Jonathan? Send an email to soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he will respond to the best in a future edition.
Leave a Reply