Ten games and nearly nine weeks on from his ignominious departure, Ruben Amorim’s influence is still being felt at Manchester United.
The problems left behind by the Portuguese are many and varied but dotted amongst them are indisputable positives, often delivered as hard truths. Nowhere is this dichotomy clearer than in the wide areas, those most contentious parts of the pitch where wingers were ditched wholesale in favour of marauding wing backs.
Rude awakening
Amorim’s determination to mould the squad to his exacting needs, and his intolerance towards poor attitudes, made for a rude awakening for United’s established wingers.
Marcus Rashford, Alejandro Garnacho, Antony and Jadon Sancho made up four fifths of the uncompromising coach’s bomb squad. Four players who didn’t suit the system, but also four players who increasingly looked at odds with the club’s entire philosophy – it’s hard to make a case for any one of them deserving a seat back in a dressing room mysteriously much less toxic than it was when they departed.
Meanwhile Patrick Dorgu was brought in as a dedicated wing-back, Amad was repurposed to play that role and Diogo Dalot was given an unsettling level of responsibility.
Carrick left to wing it
Fast-forward to Michael Carrick’s interim reign and its more familiar 4-2-3-1 shape, and while the Englishman will be grateful for the removal of difficult personalities, he will also doubtless be frustrated by his options on the wings.
Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo were signed for big money to complete the summer’s comprehensive changing of United’s attacking guard – both are excellent, but both are at their best as 10s.
For Carrick, rightly rotating an off-colour Amad sacrifices the only out-and-out winger in the squad, and just as Dorgu was surging into form in a more attacking position he was sidelined through injury, leaving the pickings worryingly slim.
With Cunha and Mbeumo on the wings there is no lack of effort but a desperate shortage in natural width, and the team’s creativity suffers hugely as a result.
A serious issue
The issue is made all the starker when the form of Dalot and Luke Shaw hits the buffers, as it has in recent weeks, compounding the gaping lack of quality to either side of a resilient core.
United’s narrowness and resulting predictability has been one of the key causes of their faltering form as the Carrick revolution has collided headlong with the immovable object of reality.
It was a big reason for Newcastle United being able to shatter the interim head coach’s 100% record with comparative ease, and is something he must rectify, even as his hands are tied by lack of resources.
The Red Devils are incredibly likely to reinforce in wide areas over the summer, so this lack of personnel should be a comparatively short-term problem.
Having been so comprehensively burnt by appointing a three-at-the-back zealot, United will surely hand a full-time deal to a coach playing a regulation back four. Whether Carrick or someone else, this coach will demand wingers and quite possibly improved full backs; if INEOS don’t heed these requests, they are once more setting a new man up to fail.
Feature image George Wood via Getty Images
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