Ruben Amorim warned when he came in at Old Trafford that it would take a long time to fix their many, many issues, and goodness me, he wasn’t wrong.
The United name, the way the club have been structured, and the massive contracts some of their squad are on make it an absolute massive steam liner of a ship to turn around quickly.
Brighton could not be more of a contrast. Their entire Premier League existence has been built on being nimble and responsive, knowing that their best players and managers will often be quickly poached. With a hat-tip to Collin Millar, this is Brighton’s third away win in a row at Old Trafford, all under different managers, with 33 different players featuring for Albion.
United, meanwhile, remain stuck in the ice somewhere around the Arctic circle, failing to move and slowly rusting away.
Try as you might to find signs of progress since Amorim’s arrival, it is extremely difficult to do so, primarily because there aren’t really any.
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Results have got even worse after Amorim’s arrival, with performances remaining underwhelming. The highlight of his reign so far, away to Liverpool, was a 2-2 draw that only felt like a win. Their FA Cup penalty shooutout win over Arsenal last weekend was impressive work with ten men, but still relied on Arsenal wasting a fleet of chances (in fairness, a reasonable strategy at the moment). You get no credit for masterminding a win over Southampton this season, and even then they were reliant on a brilliant late individual showing from Amad Diallo.
For the time being, that leaves us looking for points of difference, rather than improvement. One of the notable oddities of United’s form under Erik ten Hag this season was just how hard they were working to such underwhelming effect.
United still rank top for tackles attempted, tackles made and interceptions made per game this season, despite all of those metrics dropping since Amorim’s arrival. For a side with the sixth-highest possession in the division, that is…a bit weird.
Amorim has spent his time at the club so far coaching United to try and work smarter rather than harder. We’ve seen that in effect against Liverpool and Arsenal, with the defence smartly picking their moments to nip out of the defensive line in an effort to win the ball. Once that was done, United would look for a couple of sharp passes out to the wings to finish the move off.
All of which is very good and nice, but has served them well in all of about three games: against Manchester City, Liverpool, and Arsenal.
Already that ploy has been cracked. Brighton went man-for–man on the wings to remove the quick out ball, for one. That left United to try and break down a midfield press without much success; and whenever they did get past the Brighton midfield, the Seagulls would simply play the ball over the top, rather than in to their striker’s feet where the United defence could do that line-breaking job to win a tackle quickly.
After that FA Cup win with ten man last week, the focus was on United’s frustrating tendency to get up for the big game and fail to raise to the occasion when the spotlight was shining that bit less brightly.
That notion that there is something rotten in the dressing room holding them back from the most strenuous self-motivation may well have something to it, but it can’t be the whole story.
The reality is that United…simply aren’t very good. Amorim is just the latest in a long line of managers who has tried to provide them with a defensive framework around which to build a cohesive and effective side, and in those games against their three biggest old rivals, it has worked.
It’s not even like United are getting absolutely batted in the games they have lost. Bournemouth won 3-0 with nine shots, four shots on target. Wolves won 2-0 with seven shots, four on target. And now Brighton have won 3-1 with six shots, three on target.
To so consistently come out on the losing side against those kinds of numbers usually has a lot more to do with poor work on the ball than off it: you may not give up many chances, but those you do have caught you so massively on the hop that the opposition can’t help but take advantage.
In other words, Amorim has been a good rope-a-dope manager so far, but ends up serving as the dope himself against sides who try to do the same to United.
That was certainly the case against Brighton – and unfortunately for Amorim, the squad at his disposal offers him very little ability to start bossing games the way he would like.
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