Ruben Amorim is poised to destroy the status quo at Manchester United and install his Sporting Lisbon blueprint.
Amorim is due to fly into Manchester from Lisbon on Monday, although he has been forced to wait to get onto the training pitch due to work permit issues. He signed off from Sporting in style on Sunday evening, overseeing a 4-2 comeback win away at Braga, and is now fully focused on implementing his ideas at United.
The 39-year-old has enjoyed huge success at Sporting, winning 71 per cent of his matches and claiming two league titles and two cups. His side have played with a 3-4-3 formation and employed a high-energy press – and Amorim isn’t about to change his philosophy.
“I know how I am going to play in the beginning because you have to start with a structure that you know,” Amorin explained in the press conference after his final Sporting match. “We don’t have a lot of time to train, so I have to show something that I know very well.”
United have played a 4-2-3-1 formation for the past two and a half years under Erik ten Hag, with interim boss Ruud van Nistelrooy continuing in that shape. That approach is about to be scrapped by Amorim, whose first match will come at Portman Road against Ipswich on November 24.
Former United defender Gary Neville is predicting some growing pains under Amorim. "I can see why he wanted the job next summer because he would rather have pre-season to implement the brand-new system,” he said on the Stick to Football podcast. “Those players have not played three at the back at all, some of them might never have played it.”
Neville’s old team-mate Paul Scholes agrees, but has called for patience while the team adapts. “The old-fashioned three at the back – we tried it a few times, and I reckon we lasted about 10-12 minutes before we said ‘it’s not working,’” Scholes said on The Overlap Fan Debate.
“We always went back to a back four, which is what we knew. We are in a position now where you can’t look and think we’re a 4-4-2 team, or a 4-4-1-1 team – we’ve got to bow to whatever this new coach wants."
However, ex-Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy thinks United simply don’t have the personnel to carry out what Amorim is asking. “It depends how you play the 3-4-3. You can play it pragmatically or can play it offensively. They've got lots of good players at Manchester United, international players, so they should be able to adapt and play all different systems,” he told Boylesports.
“But if he tries to mirror the Sporting team as it is now, they'll have problems. That’s because they play a high line, they go after teams, they push up and they dominate games and they score lots of goals and they make lots of chances. Now, if United play that way, I think they'll struggle because they haven't got great legs at the back.”
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