Manchester United Thread 25/26 - Teamtalk/Transfers/Gossip Mod Note in OP 26.09.24

I don't know if it's a briefing, I just have a funny feeling they'll stick with him unless we're legitimately in relegation trouble and as bad as things are, I don't think we will be. Could very easily be back in the region of 15th by the end of the season though.

Bit of a nothing post so don't have a go at me about the source but Romano said Xavi would take the united job.

Makes sense...He's unemployed....

They won’t.

There is zero benefit to say anything to the press other than you fully back the manager until you are ready to pull the trigger.

Feels like we are just circling the drain now.

As an interim, why not? He got the team playing well when he came in as interim before. 8 wins in a row. We can’t win 2 in a row atm. Nobody is suggesting you give him the job full time. What happened after he was made permanent last time tells us that.

Would hiring the right person permanently within a few weeks be better? Yes. Obviously. Ole is only being mentioned as an option if you feel you can’t get the right permanent manager right now. Some managers do not want to join other clubs mid-season. What do you do if Glasner, Iraola or Nagelsmann are identified as the top three and they all say “yep, but only in the summer” - do you then just go to Southgate because he will start immediately? In that scenario surely you want someone like Ole who knows the club very well, to try and get something out of the remainder of the season. Give the new manager a better platform to start from that what Amorim would leave behind in May.

It is very early to be getting an interim for almost 85% of the season - people know that. Is there a better alternative interim if that is what’s needed? I don’t know.

You could argue the system doesn’t suit the players, and it’s a fair argument given our personnel.

But other managers have walked into different set-ups with inferior squads and implemented the same setup.

What those managers managed to do though, was coach the players.

That’s the thing about Amorim, why things have been so bad. The coaching has been horrible, it clearly has been.

No players have improved individually under him, and our interplay, positional setup defensively, our pressing, movement, creativity, they’ve all gotten worse under him.

It doesn’t matter the system, if the coaching is bad, it’ll show up regardless.

And after 11 months of it, I can safely say that’s not going to change under Amorim.

It is a bit of both. Player wise, the midfield is awful. The goalkeeper is awful. We're still utterly dependent on a young unproven striker. Play whatever formation you like, they will still be a big problem. A lot of that is an INEOS/recruitment problem, not an Amorim problem. Amorim himself being a bad fit for the squad is an INEOS/recruitment problem. Central midfield has to be a priority in January. Goalkeeper too if Bayindr is considered the best keeper at the club.

But Amorim and his system are a bad fit for the squad. Mazroui is a good right back. But is being asked to play wing back whenever Amad is not being asked to. The squad has no clear cut wing backs, apart from maybe Dorgu. Bruno is a good #10 but he's clearly not got the discipline to be a central midfielder. It was worth trying him there given how few midfielders are in the squad, but it hasn't worked.

3 at the back can work in the Premier League. Conte won a title with it, and Crystal Palace beat Liverpool playing it just today. But Amorim has played 33 PL games and lost more than half of them. And there is no evidence of him trying to find a solution. I remember posting last December when the warning lights were already flashing that Amorim needed to find a way to win games, anyway, anyhow. Here we are almost 10 months later and he still hasn't found a way.

The same could be said for many Interim options. By definition you're not going to get a perfect interim manager because if they were that good, they'd have a job at a top club right now. And the vast majority of high profile managers out of work will not accept an interim role as it cheapens their status.

Apologise. Yes.

Benson & Hedges would be great signings.

I think his apprach ot th eformation isn't working, and that the players are bad. I think we need to change the players in a lot of cases, but I am no longer trusting that he gets what we need from new players.

He seems unable to coach a plan, consistently, into the side. We can look good and organized vs Arsenal, we can look bewildred and battered by the most basic of attacks vs Brentford.

Even if you don't blame him for the goals (there were enough players in the right positions for all of them) our inability to control any part of the game, at all, over any time in the game is more on him than the goals.

I don't think INEOS will work that way. Woodward and others, yes. But INEOS want to succeed, are under pressure to succeed and are more attuned to data people + expert opinion (there are none I can see that think Amorim can turn this around). I don't see them thinking that a win v Sunderland will change anything. I think they will have made their minds up by now that change is required and they will be sounding out options and trying to put a plan in place. Amorim will stay until this is figured out, unless he loses to Sunderland and things become unbearably toxic. In which case they'll be under immense pressure to sack him and bring in someone like Fletcher while they sort out what they're going to do.

And I know people will say they should have had this stuff planned already because Amorim was poor last season and it can't come as a huge shock that we find ourselves in this position now. Understandable but I don't think it's reasonable because different managers are always becoming available/unavailable and circumstances change, so there's only so much forward planning you can do.

I don't think they'll go for Southgate. People view him as a safe pair of hands because of his England record and that's his selling point. I can see how that would be attractive in our current situation - aim for a manager with a fairly high floor even if there's questions with regards the ceiling he can reach. BUT, I don't think you can even assume that this is what you'll get from Southgate because international football is so different to 2025 PL football. You can't really compare. Southgate is totally unproven in an environment like that and they can't afford to take a risk on someone unproven imo.

I think it'll be a current PL manager or some other manager that has a proven game model at a high level (Luis Enrique for eg. but he's v unlikely right now). They're in a position where they can't afford to gamble on an unknown quantity - they need to have a fairly high degree of certainty that the manager's game model will work in the PL.