Another **** show, and yet more evidence why Onana has to go. He didn't come off his line for their second and his error for their third was schoolboy stuff. On another point, I think the MUTV half-time studio team got it bang on - Zirkzee is coming 20yds too deep for much of the play, and industrious as he is, when he is played as the lone striker he needs to be further up the field, as soon as we break we have no-one to target. By contrast Hojlund doesn't have the ball playing abilities that Zirkzee has. It would be interesting to see how the two would play together with Hojlund up front. Quite who would have to give way in the midfield to accommodate Zirkzee would be anyone's guess.
This is an illustration of lack of dynamism in Amorim’s approach to games. Playing the same system regardless of the opponent is the reason why we keep struggling against teams at OT and beyond. We can’t keep struggling to score goals at home and blame it on lack of a striker.
A more sensible and pragmatic approach, by a more experienced manager, would have been to adapt as best he can given the players at his disposal until things can be tweaked during the next two windows. Once we had been stabilised, then we could start looking forward to pre-season when new systems could be practiced until the cows come home and new players integrated into the squad. Fifteen games since he took over, there are clear signs of what he wants to implement but he fails to grasp that however long he tries, this current crop are not the right players to play that system, and so we regress, week by week rather than show continued improvement. The classic one step forward, one step back. At this rate we could well be in a relegation battle come the closing stages of the season - what then of his grand plan, what then of all the good prospects we want to recruit. He has to change, or be changed.
I mentioned relegation battle when ETH was in charge. Sadly, we have lost even more points since he left. The priority of any manager should be to always get points at all cost, then you can start to talk about style. We can’t simply focus on style while we get dragged into the bottom of the table. But I guess we think we are too big to fail. We are not!
Give it a few games and we'll be bringing Big Sam to sort things out - points at all costs, **** the system, just win any way we can.
Amorim has been brought in because of how he played the game, and won in that style, with Sporting was admired by our recruitment. I don't think they will now say, **** your style mate you need to make do with what you've got and go back to a back four. Everyone moaned that we had no style of play or 'philosophy' under ten Hag. It became almost a cliché. Now we have a manager with a defined style, people are moaning about that too. I sit in the camp of support the manager. I don't see the point in going back to a back four if this is not what they are doing in training, and it's not how he wants us to play the game long term. You can't train one thing and play something different. And you coach and train for the short term, they need to be learning the long term system now. We need to persist with what he wants to do, not what you or the players want to do. And stand and, in the case of the remainder of this season, fail by it. In the meantime, recruit the players he wants and can play to his ideas. And he can also assess those he has, and suss out who can fit in and stay. It's that that is bugging me the most, why haven't we got in the wing backs and striker he needs? And why haven't the likes of Rashford been given the open door to leave. The window is open, sort that out.
A manager with a defined style - but unfortunately for us, a style that worked in an inferior and much less competitive league. Let's face it, INEOS got mugged, all the talk of Amorim's mate going to City, the prospect that a rising star might follow him to replace Pep and we'd be stuck with ETH - INEOS fell for the hype and we've ended up with an EFL manager who is out of his depth. He talks a good talk, but hasn't the nous or the tactical skill to get us out of this mess - a mess largely of his making after 15 games and such poor results. All we've done is bought a big fish from a small pond - a Portuguese Brendan Rogers without the teeth veneers.
Nonsense. It works in Europe. In the champions league. It worked against Liverpool, away, when we should have won. It's absolutely not the system, City play the same after all, with a fluid back 3/5, it's the fact that the players he has inherited can't play in it. Because for the most part they are ******ed in a footballing sense and don't have the brains or ability to do anything different. Dalot, for instance, can neither defend or play a final ball, so he's not suited to wing back play. Garnacho can't do anything other than run the wings, so he's not an inside forward. Nor can he defend, so he's no good at wing back either. They are also ****ing lazy ****s for the most part, that's endemic in the squad we have as we've bought names who think they don't have to work for their wages instead of actual footballers who fit into a team and style. We've got three or four decent centre halves, but they need the wing backs to come back as a full back when defending though. It's a shame about Mazaroui as I think he's a cracking player, hopefully he can ultimately adapt. Dalot never will though. And Shaw is never fit, nor is Malacia. Amorim really should have started with us in the summer, but the club insisted he come now or not at all. They need to therefore back him. To the hilt. I doubt he cares, if they won't do it his way he'll ultimately leave and be a success elsewhere, it would be our loss. We'd end up with someone like Southgate playing dull, thick, pea soup football and won't improve anyway. Because our 'fans' want instant results without accepting the squad isn't up to it.
Which all begs the question of why, INEOS brought him in, knowing full well that a) he played such a rigid system so different to what our squad were accustomed to, and b) not having the budget in place to buy players who could play his way. As I've said before, we should have stuck with ETH (couldn't be any worse) and planned for the summer transition with the incoming manager involved in transfer planning etc etc. To bring in a manager whose rigid style of play would require a complete squad overhaul without the funds to support him was madness. We need rid of Casemiro, Rashford, Malacia, Antony, Mount, Shaw, and Hojlund at the very least, but there is no money to replace them and no prospect of selling them because of the wages these farts are on. We need to start looking in the same places that Brighton, Palace and Brentford do - young, hungry, rough diamonds who would give their all for £40k a week rather than the normal places where we buy our carthorses and mercenaries.
I agree on the first couple of paragraphs, totally. I think we should have waited. Or even more so, not give Ten Hag his contract extension in the first place, all that meant them just chucking their own money away, on players who wouldn't suit a future system and in having to pay off ten Hag. The players they bought last summer, well de Ligt and Yoro should work out anyway. And Mazaroui is a very good defender, just probably not wing back type attacker as well. He's just wan Bissaka, albeit better going forward and more flexible. Zirkzee is no centre forward though. No way, he just can't lead the line. He should suit playing either side of the striker though. Should, but I still think he's not really good enough. Hojlund needs help, a senior ready made 9 to give him a break and learn from. Hojlund should just be a sub for that person, part of the squad. I think Mount would fit in the front three as a narrower attacker, but he's just never going to get fit. Ever. Ditto Shaw and Malacia, who I don’t think is good enough anyway. Oh yeah and he really needs to look at giving Bayindir a run and dropping Onana for good. Onana does more than cost the odd goal, he costs us whole games.
I don’t see City ever playing a back three in the league. They play 4 at the back in most their games. As hiring Amorim because of his style of football over ETH’s; that’s absolutely not the reason why ETH was sacked. ETH simply had to go because he wasn’t getting results and had spent a fkin boat with no results to show for it. Also, we are here talking as though style is the end as opposed to act as means to an end. And that end is always to WIN! If you’re winning, very few people will care about the style. But if you’re losing with beautiful style, you will still get sacked. The mandate is to win first and foremost, then bring style into it.
What Amorim needs to do is learn to arrest the situation. If he’s staying stubborn that there is only one way to skin the cat, he will fail badly. The Premier League is extremely physical and highly more tactical than the Portuguese league. He needs to recognize this and become flexible in his approach. There was once a time the great Sir Alex developed different formations, one for the league and another for Europe. He also deployed different systems away from 4-4-2 to accommodate the lack of two strikers after the treble years. The point is, style doesn’t come in one formation and with financial constraints, this is not a FIFA game where you can simply buy random players. A good manager will need to work with what he gets and make the most it. But first, let’s try and get to 40 points.
Stones plays as both a dcm and centre half, he drops into defence when defending and moves into midfield when they are attacking. So yes, they do. Rodri being injured this season changes things and so, guess what, they are worse for it as well. No one said ETH was sacked to specifically accommodate Amorim. The bottom line here is that, having employed him, the board need to make some crucial signings quickly so that Amorim can sort things out. Amorim is quite right to say what he said, a large section of this squad is ****e, and not fit for purpose.
The way things are going it appears that come the season's end either we have to change the players to suit Amorim (which we can't afford to do) or we change Amorim and replace him with someone who is more flexible in their tactical approach - which we can afford to do.
Or Amorim shifts his own mindset. If he can’t readapt to the changing needs, how can he even expect others to change? BS! The squad is the squad! There’s no money kicking around. This is the reality. Therefore, Amorim must make the fkin squad work. We have tried that nonsense of always getting players that a manager wants only to still arrive at this juncture. So no! We can’t keep buying players that a manager wants. Hence why we have a different structure now. And importantly! You can’t tell me that this squad is so fkin sht they should struggle against a fkin team that has only managed one victory in 21 games. Like wtf?! We can’t keep making excuses about players, players, players. The manager must figure out a way to make it work! Sadly, ETH would have certainly won more games with exact same set of players as he evidently did. Go figure!
****ing lol. I genuinely need to know what you're watching if you really think the issue does not lie with player quality. Or lack of it. What is your solution? I'd really love to know, because nothing anyone at all at any level at the club do is right, they are always all wrong. Bar the players, who you continue to maintain are good enough somehow. You don't think they should be paid, but you think they are good enough. Despite a succession of managers failing to get a tune out of them. Or failing to persuade them they are fit to play. You'd even have Sancho back, it's ****ing wierd. And then if Amorim couldn't make him try, it would be Amorim's fault, not Sancho's ffs. At least 50% of that squad should be chucked in the ****ing bin. It's the same players who got ten Hag sacked, yet Amorim should 'make it work'. So, he stops Onana throwing goals in. He gets Dalot to concentrate for more than 80% of the match and not get continually caught out of position . He makes Shaw fit. He makes Mount fit. Rashford suddenly tries. Sancho comes back, and tries. Garnacho stops running into blind alleys and makes a killer ball. Fernandes actually plays with discipline. He stops the ageing process of both Casemiro and Eriksen. Hojlund becomes less invisible. Zirzkzee suddenly developes pace. Antony becomes a footballer!! All the things that exisisted before Amorim arrived, are supposed to suddenly disappear and he waves his magic wand. By playing them back in a formation that failed under ten Hag and everyone moaned and got him sacked ffs! Just like that.
I don’t think there are a lot of options on the table, Chief. Today is January 21st. How many players have we sold? None! How many have we brought in? None! The reality is we are finding it hard to fund transfers. And if the manager thinks he can’t make the current squad work, then perhaps he should leave now and let someone else try? Critically, these are also the same set of players that got results away to Liverpool, Arsenal, and Manchester City. If they are capable of that, how could they be so sht as we are led to believe to struggle against Southampton? Perhaps it was pure luck and true divine intervention that we got those results. Or perhaps rationally, the setup of the team is more suitable against teams that are expected to beat us but stinks when we are expected to win. I recently pointed out this clear trend in our results.
My understating is a player has to be sold to satisfy PSR requirements, and that player is to be Garnacho. Because there is interest, and it will accrue in the region of £50million. He also seems incapable of playing that inside forward position. Zirkzee, Amad, Fernandes and (if ever fit) Mount can, so he's surplus. Shame, but that is the rule, we have to sell to be able to buy. This then allows us to purchase. Do we really think that the club will have gone through this recruitment process of Amorim, to then throw him under the bus and not support him? I do not think this is the case. They are, however, counting the pennies as the Glazers have given the whole football club a nice gift of £800 million worth of debt. They have sloped off into the background, leaving INEOS at the coalface to (mis)manage the situation. Radcliffe won't just plunge us further into debt, he won't be allowed to (for some reason, these rules don't seemingly apply to Chelsea or City, who can spend at will, just everyone else), but they will provide Amorim with the players he needs. The way I see it, we desperately need a left sided wing back. A right sided one too, but Mazaroui/Dalot really should be capable and adaptable enough to play that role. They should, but have shown that they only occasionally can. We need an additional goal scorer too. Those 2/3 signings will have to see us through to summer. This isn't all going to happen overnight. The club as a whole is utterly ****ed, this is not on the manager, he is tasked with a long term sort out.
