What’s gone wrong at Man Utd? | Super Sunday pundits DEBATE Ruben Amorim’s future

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Roy Keane, Micah Richard, Gary Neville and Izzy Christiansen debate what Ruben Amorim’s future at Manchester United will look like as the struggles continue at the club.

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every defeat is a crisis if you’re the Manchester United manager and he’s had plenty in his his um short period in time. Is is there a danger that uh we everybody we know that headlines are going to be tomorrow are going to overreact to this? No, we’re just giving our opinions of what we’ve we’ve seen. He said he’s not too angry. He’s had with happy with the effort. They’ve lost three-0 in the Derby game. He should be fuming. He should be raging. and he’s an emotional guy, but when he’s talking about the effort of the players, but you gota I think they’re they’re decision making. He’s talking about moments, but football football games are decided by moments, but there’s always seems to be moments of the opposition than United at this moment in time. And I’m including teams like Grimby, by the way. So, he he should be raging and I I I like managerial emotion, but I like my manager to show his anger as well. I just couldn’t imagine being in a dress room after losing the Derby game 3-0 and everyone going, “Yeah, do we all try?” Yeah, you got to bring quality your decision making. He’s on about people not being aggressive not out of possession when you’re when the first couple when the goals go in that’s when you have to be aggressive. He’s it’s called smell and danger when you’re a footballer and we can criticize the system but is he going to is is he got to bring Luke Shaw out and the training pitch and tell him how to get down low and defend properly is that’s not his job either to be fair but obviously the pressure will be building. They’ve got Chelsea next week. It’s not going to get any easier for this team. And he said he’s building something. But while you’re building something or you’re on a project, you’ve got to win the odd football match and they’re not winning enough games. So the pressure will just build and build over the next few months. Is it becoming harder for yourself, for Manchester United fans to be optimistic about the direction of travel under Ruben Amarim? Look, I I think maybe it’s because Louis Van Hal and Jose Mourinho are sort of like huge massive personalities in the world of football and when they came into a interview after the game, they were very spiky at times. So, it almost brought anger out maybe in this studio. I don’t think there’s any anger in this studio at this moment in time. And I don’t think there’s any there’s no ill will towards any manager, but certainly towards Ruben Amim. I think we all want him to do really well. But there are patterns emerging and if there will be no Manchester United fan that exists that isn’t worried at this moment in time about what’s going to happen in this next month. And the one thing I would say about the system, and I’m not going to get bogged down on three at the back, five at the back, four at the back, but when he talks about the two in midfield, and Patrick I thought asked him two really good questions there about the two in midfield. I think it’s about who the two players are number one, which obviously United haven’t got the right two in there. Whether that’s Casemiro, Garti, Mayu, or Fernandez. He has any players that fit this system? No, he hasn’t got the right four in there. So that’s a big problem for him. So then you would ordinarily say a manager has to adapt until he gets the right players into the club. He’s not been able to do it in this first wave of transfers. Whose decision would that have been, Gary? They spent all the money at the top of the pitch, didn’t they? No, but I think they need to fix the top of the pitch. I don’t I don’t disagree with that. But they spent 200 odd million. We were all surprised United had that much money. But just coming back to the two in midfield, there is a a pattern. It is a problem. So I I know that he said it’s not a problem in there because he’s got three at the back and he’s got the three in front. He said he mentioned a Burmo, Cesco, and Dio. And I know exactly what he means, but it is a problem. And it’s happening in a lot of the games that Manchester United are playing. They start off really compact where all players, the 10 players are connecting. The five at the back, the two midfield are really close to that five and then the three in front are cuddling that two. So they’re really protected. But what happens is if the game becomes a little stretched, it usually happens when Manchester United conceded a goal. It happened against Burnley, happened against Fulham, happened against not necessarily against Arsenal, but against Burnley Fulham, it happened against here today against Manchester City. when Manchester United go a goal down and those three start to be a bit more risktaken, a bit more expressive and they start to stretch a little bit that two then look wide open and you can’t deny that. So yeah, I get what he means by the fact when they’re all compact. But there is a problem that’s emerging that if United have a difficulty in a game and those two end up left in there on their own. There are none of them that are good enough to defend that space though, none of them have got the legs. You’d need Casso and Vieira. You’d need Keane and and that’s where they get Gerard. You need that’s why they get found out against decent opposition. They can get away against Burnley or draw Fulham, but against the really good teams, the midfield battle, if you’re losing that battle against the good teams, ultimately you’re going to lose football. Why Why did Pep bring Dou off the line today into a position I’ve never seen him bring him into? Because Manchester United play two in there. It’s It’s too flat. It’s too rigid. And it’s hard to when you watch this system, we’ve we’ve seen Amarim for for what over six months now in the Premier League. It’s hard to fit. Gary’s just alluded to Premier League football has played center midfield, right? It’s hard to understand what profile of player plays that role because I hear people speaking about, oh, they need legs. Okay, if you need legs, you’ve got a gate, but he’s not very good on the ball. And then you’ve got Fernandez who plays in that role because he’s creative and he can see that forward pass almost because he knows he wants to receive that type of forward pass himself. So, he’s sort of compromising. Casemiro often plays. Then you got a player in Kobe who in my opinion is sort of a blend. He’s good. He’s better on the ball than Nate and he can move around the pitch and all I hear is you know we need dynism in that midfield but there isn’t any dynism in that midfield and also if they are going to play in front of a back three where you got three center backs you have the five you use the word there cuddle you have to be protective of that area and that is your shape when you’re attacking but they seem so open when they you know when they’re beating on transitions and things like that and the center backs get drawn out too easily and it’s hard to actually find the profile of player that fits the system, not just in that midfield role, but in other areas of the pitch. You’ve play you’ve played in you’ve played in a three at the back, you’ve played at four, you’ve played whatever system. If he was out there tonight, it’s very difficult for you to do your job in that system because you’re forever thinking about when you’ve got to jump into midfield. Say you played right of a three. You played right back all your career, bombing up and down, but then you go right of a three, but you’re used to certain positions on the pitch and how to defend. I just think it’s too confusing for the players. I think it’s easier to go with four at the back and push someone in midfield rather than go with a five at the back. If you played, wouldn’t you have to be one of the the main creators of this team? Well, so when when I did play three at the back under Terry Venibles or under Glenn Huddle, me or Stuart Pierce with the right or left center backs, but if a team played one up against us, we would go to a back four. Correct. We would go to a back four. So basically Stuart Pierce would tuck in alongside say Tony Adams and I’d go then and obviously they’d have two wide players. So you’d end up basically I’d shuffle across to right back and be a bit bit more traditional. You you would all because you don’t want three at the back against Erling Harland. So what you see today is that Shaw Shaw and Yuro are having to push into midfield to pick up a player in a position that they’re not really sure where they are. Then it leaves spaces behind them. So you are asking players to jump in then because there’s only three v there’s 3v1 at the back. So it isn’t ideal at times. But he plays it very differently. Ruben Amarim, it’s not even you never see Shaw going out to play left back and saying, “Okay, play Dorgu left wing for like 20 minutes and play Shaw left back and play what’s he called? Um Yoro and Dict in midfield.” and Maze back to right back. That would have fit today against Bernardo Silva, Dou and Harland. But they didn’t do that. They don’t do that. They do it a different way where one of the back players goes into midfield. The the record is ugly. Um I’m talking about Ruben Amram’s Premier League record since coming in. And well, you put mine up then. You play three back. It’s not far off. Well, I think your win ratio was actually higher, wasn’t it? This is 25% win ratio from 31 Premier League games um with a goal difference of of minus3. Gary sort of alluded to October being a time where we need to see progress. At what point does some serious consideration have to be taken about about whether this is working, whether the system is too rigid, whether he needs to change or something else needs to change here. I I I don’t like talking about managers job and and I never will. I don’t I don’t think it’s fair, but obviously what he’s doing right now is not working. Since his first Premier League game, I think he’s got less points than some of the the worst teams in the Premier League, you know, and if you’re going to be at Man Man United, it needs to be better than that. You know, we’re stating the obvious here. We constantly talk about Man United and where they’ve been and all that sort of stuff, but his man in a job. And at this moment in time, he’s he’s not getting it right. And when you talk about managers, we have to adapt as pundits with all the new terminologies and all that sort of thing. He has to he has to adapt as a manager. And right now he’s not adapting. And I don’t think the players are receiving the message in the way that they want to to implement it on the field. Will they get there Roy? If if you know we we we give Ruben Amarim the season and say, “Okay, this is another free hit.” You know what? It’s more hoped and believed for this moment of time because again, we’re watching and we see him week in week out and uh yeah, not convinced. are convinced, but I hope they can prove us wrong. We’re on about the the supporters and the media losing kind of belief in this management. My worry is if the players aren’t truly behind them in terms of the way they’re playing in the system because the results just haven’t been good enough and um yeah, big worry. Manchester United’s best player is Bruno Fernandez and that is my biggest worry. Still, he’s he’s Manchester United’s best player. He’s been incredible for five, six, seven years. His numbers are outstanding. would live in any Manchester United era. But in this system, he either has to play as one of a two in midfield, which means he’s deep, or he has to play as either like a leftsided forward or a right-sided forward. So that isn’t ideal. It reminds me a little bit of when Sebastian Varon came to Manchester United, we were very much a 442 team. And when Sebastian Veron was very much almost like a 4-3-3 midfield player where he had like a sitting midfield player with one of the two in front like the eights that they call they call it eights now. That’s what Bruno Fernandez is. He’s just like he he wants someone deep lying behind him and then one of those two in there that plays with a bit of freedom and that’s a bit of a worry that Bruno Fernandez has started to sort of go missing a little bit. If you think about the Europa League final and you think about game like today he’s not at his best and he is United’s best player and you need to get the best out of him. You said before the game, Ro, if he doesn’t play well, United struggle and it’s difficult for him to play well deep without the ball. It’s difficult for him to play as a left winger or a right winger or whatever you want to call those positions that that Ruben Amaran plays. Kun’s absence. Is that is that something that we should had Churkey Mush and they had others out today. Stones I’m not I am definitely not going down that route and letting United off the hook because of Kuna. I mean that’s just not happening. City had lots of players