We believe and hope, like United legend Teddy Sheringham, that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will one day return to Old Trafford as Manchester United manager. In the meantime, we use the “Eagle of the North”, as he is called in Istanbul, to try to understand why Ruben Amorim is not successful in the Premier League. On Sunday, we found an answer.
When Ruben Amorim entered the scene as Manchester United coach in November, there was a crystal clear message from the Portuguese: “This is going to be chaos”. The former Sporting coach was brought to Old Trafford for his attacking football, in a formation the Manchester United players had not trained on. Amorim promised he would not introduce changes gradually, here there was a total makeover in the game from the first practice.
READ: Mourinho had enough – after the loss to the “jypling” Solskjaer
Amorim kept his promise. It was chaos, he didn’t change the game. When things really got tough and United were stuck in 13th or 14th place in the table, the Portuguese stood his ground: “I’m not changing.”
This full focus on the long-term solution towards a Premier League title in the future has cost Manchester United supporters an awful lot of sporting suffering. Brentford made sure to send the United supporters to the pub with another loss, in the last six Premier League games the club has carved their way to two points.
In Istanbul, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer stood up against Jose Mourinho in the city derby between Besiktas and Fenerbahce. Mourinho had the advantage of home ground and momentum in the title race against Galatasaray, but Solskjaer led his players to a 0-1 victory.
So what does this have to do with Ruben Amorim? Let’s let Solskjaer sum up the game against Mourinho and Fenerbahce:
– Did we play well today? No!, but there were players who ran until they got cramps. We saw the players running and fighting together. Do the same in the remaining games, it will give us opportunities next season… Today we tried to make it difficult for Fenerbahçe,” Solskjaer said, according to Fotomac.
Didn’t play well, was going to make it difficult for the opponent – and won.
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Two years ago, Unai Emery compared the Premier League to La Liga and Ligue 1. The Aston Villa coach highlighted the biggest difference with the fact that in the Premier League, absolutely all clubs can beat everyone on a good/bad day.
This means that the fine-playing Ruben Amorim, with his long-term plan, meets Premier League coaches every single week, who do like Solskjaer against Mourinho. Makes the players run until the cramp takes them, the fine play has to give way, the goal is to ruin the opponent’s game – and win.
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Until Ruben Amorim understands this mechanism in the world’s toughest league, where any club can beat Manchester United, and adapts to this reality in the Premier League, Amorim risks that next season will start just like this one.
Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal have the basis for working long-term throughout the season, bottom team Manchester United have no choice but for Ruben Amorim to go into every single Premier League game “like a Solskjaer”.
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