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Ruben Amorim's contract

Is it too short?

Yuveer Madanlal
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7/11/2024
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6 min read

Two-and-a-half years is all he signed. And with the rate at which United managers get shown the door, that is either on par or too long before Amorim's potential exit, if he gets sacked, which we all hope he doesn't.

But I don't think that this is enough time for him to truly sort things out, if he sorts them out at all.

As we know, there is a hell of a lot of work that needs to be done at United for the new manager with the main one being winning trophies. But in order to do that, you need to be playing good football. In order to do that, you need the most important ingredient of them all: the players.

Looking at United's squad, many people have been giving their predictions on who will thrive under Amorim's 3-4-3 formation and modern style of play. It's actually quite simple to see who from the current group will thrive because it isn't that many. In fact, there are few that will fit into his style at all.

From what we've seen Amorim do at Sporting, it's noticeable how hard his players work, how well drilled they are and how much they will give for the shirt. This is excluding things like being technically good on the ball, knowing what to do in and out of possession, having good awareness and so on.

They also have a good understanding of how to do the basics of football: pass, control, shoot. It's quite a problem that I'm having to talk about this when it comes to our players but that's the truth. Our basics can be very lackluster far too often as we get frustrated at a simple 5-yard pass not being good enough, being caught offside despite looking down the line, not controlling it well enough, poor shooting in front of goal, taking too long on the ball, and I can go on and on.

So if our players can't do these things well enough, it's going to take a looooonnnnnnnggggggg ass time for us to see anything like what we saw with Amorim at Sporting occur at United.

Sporting celebrate during their 4-1 win over Man City | Photo by Eric Verhoeven/Soccrates/Getty Images via Manchester City News

The Portuguese himself said so post their incredible win over City a couple of nights ago:

"What I can tell you is that this doesn't mean anything in particular, don't take anything from this. We cannot transport one reality to another. Manchester Untied cannot play the way we play and we will have to adapt."

Even he knows it will take time.

And this is why the contract of just two-and-a-half years makes no sense to me.

I get that managers nowadays only last for that long anyway unless they do some incredible work. Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Don Carlo Ancelotti have all lasted beyond this two-year period at their clubs but when looking at their success rate, why would you sack them?

So in a way, is it that INEOS are saying something? Are they saying that they may not think that Amorim will be a success at United?

I don't think so but still, it does make you wonder.

But in this contract of Amorim's, he would only have five transfer windows to buy and sell players. Five windows can be enough if business is done correctly but what are the chances that it will be? What are the chances that the club will be able to remove alllllllll of the shite that needs removing and bring in alllllllll of the players that need to be bought?

The price of this is also going to be quite a lot.

With several of our squad on high wages, underperforming, are injury prone and are coming towards the twilights of their careers, who would actually want to buy them? How would the club get rid of them?

For so many years, we've seen a lot of these players not play well enough through many different managers who all had different play styles. None of them though, played with three at the back.

So if our players couldn't play well when it was the same formation (4-2-3-1) over the last four managers (Mourinho, Solskjaer, Rangnick and ten Hag), what makes anyone think that they will have the ability to adapt to something completely different assuming Amorim sticks to his plan?

Our players can't get the basics done properly let alone get used to a whole new system.

Of course, they could all surprise us and work well in a 3-4-3 as there is that chance. But Amorim's style goes beyond just a formation and style change.

As I said, it is a very modern way of playing, one that requires a lot of hard work on and off the ball, all the players have to be good on the ball, they have to be able to pass and move, be quick in transitions, don't waste any time, make the right decisions more often than not, create chances for the striker and most of the time, take them.

This is United's current squad:

Goalkeepers:

Altay Bayindir

Tom Heaton

Andre Onana

Defenders:

Victor Lindelof

Noussair Mazraoui

Matthijs De Ligt

Harry Maguire

Lisandro Martinez

Tyrell Malacia

Leny Yoro

Diogo Dalot

Luke Shaw

Jonny Evans

Harry Amass

Midfielders:

Mason Mount

Bruno Fernandes

Christian Eriksen

Casemiro

Manuel Ugarte

Kobbie Mainoo

Toby Collyer

Daniel Gore

Forwards:

Rasmus Hojlund

Marcus Rashford

Joshua Zirkzee

Amad

Alejandro Garnacho

Antony

Ethan Wheatley

Alejandro Garnacho will have to work super hard under Ruben Amorim if he wants to get into his team | Creator: Carl Recine | Credit: Getty Images Copyright: 2024 Getty Images via Goal

Out of all those players, who does fit Amorim ball (if any)?

I can see Onana, Mazraoui, De Ligt, Martinez, potentially Yoro, Dalot, potentially Bruno, Ugarte, Mainoo and Hojlund.

Just eight definites with a couple of potentials and most of them in the defence to potentially work in Amorim's style.

That is not enough.

And forget about who would work and who would not because we simply do not have enough numbers in general. That squad is too small and lacks quality, two things that don't bode well if we want to compete for the top trophies.

This is why two-and-a-half years may not be enough time.

We ideally want what City have: two first teams.

I know they ended up losing this game, but in that defeat to Sporting, this was City's lineup:

Ederson

Lewis

Pusey (yes, that's his name)

Akanji

Gvardiol

Kovacic

Savio

Foden

Silva

Nunes

Haaland

Their bench had the likes of Doku, De Bruyne, Gundogan, Walker and Ake. They were also missing Dias, Stones, Bobb, Grealish and Ballon d'Or winner Rodri.

That is the level we need to get at if we want to even compete let alone win the league and/or Champions League. Arsenal have been trying for a couple of years yet still, even with their quality, have always fallen short of City's juggernaut.

INEOS are really cutting it close with this contract in terms of whether Amorim can be successful or not in this period. They will really have to back him should they want to get the best out of what is a top coach.

However, not only is Amorim coming in a new start but it is also a new era under INEOS.

I know they've been at United a few months and have made their respective appointments in whatever roles but Erik ten Hag was still a Glazer appointment, most of his signings were done under them even if he was sacked by INEOS.

Amorim is now INEOS' guy. Whatever happens, it was them who appointed him after getting rid of ten Hag.

As INEOS are new, Sir Jim Ratcliffe won't want to start off on the wrong foot and would rather want to give off the impression that they know what they're doing with bringing in Amorim and doing whatever it takes to make him successful.

They won't want to be a new 'Glazers'.

Two-and-a-half seasons to sort this shit out 😬. That's a lot of work in a short space of time.

Background Image: Ruben Amorim | Creator: Gualter Fatia | Credit: Getty Images via SuperSport

Yuveer Madanlal

Yeah, I can talk and talk and talk about the things I love, like football and United, as you can see in this post. Once I get on a roll, it's pretty hard to stop me. This is all coming from a guy who doesn't talk that much. How weird.

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