Amorim could be excused for thinking someone is having a cruel joke at his expense when he assesses an opening that starts with Arsenal at Old Trafford, includes a trip to Manchester City and home game with Chelsea in United’s first five games, and then Liverpool at Anfield in match eight on 18 October.<\/p>\n
By that point, it will almost be 12 months since the dismissal of Ten Hag and assessments will be being made about what has changed.<\/p>\n
And that is the rub.<\/p>\n
United, led by chief executive Omar Berrada, went for an imaginative choice rather than the safe options – which included Marco Silva, Thomas Frank and Graham Potter – suggested by then sporting director Dan Ashworth as Ten Hag’s replacement.<\/p>\n
Amorim came to prominence at Sporting by delivering outstanding results with a specific formation. Three central defenders, wing-backs and two inside forwards behind a number nine. The immediate collateral damage in shaping a United squad to fit that system was the discarding of five players – four of whom are senior internationals who prefer to play wide.<\/p>\n
The full extent of the additional impact Amorim has made by bringing in Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko, at a combined cost in the region of \u00a3200m, to fill the attacking roles remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
However, the intention is for skipper Fernandes to play deeper in one of the two midfield slots. How much meaningful time on the pitch is afforded to England duo Mason Mount and Kobbie Mainoo, whose contract stand-off remains unresolved, is open to question.<\/p>\n
At the back, team selections in five unbeaten games in three countries across pre-season, suggest Harry Maguire and Matthijs de Ligt are battling for a single slot as the middle defender, while Luke Shaw and Lisandro Martinez, when fit, are vying to be first choice on the left of the three.<\/p>\n
De Ligt has proved adept at moving into midfield when United’s keeper has the ball. This, Amorim reasons, clears the space for his side to get possession into the areas of the field where they can cause more damage. Fernandes’ task, in Amorim’s ideal world, is to get on the ball as often as possible, and then make the right decisions.<\/p>\n
It’s all very technical. In theory, it also provides support in midfield, which tended to be completely overrun during Ten Hag’s time because the Dutchman wanted to stretch the space in that area of the field, something Casemiro was not able to do, while none of those asked to partner him made a particular success of either.<\/p>\n
Casemiro’s game intelligence, his ability to read situations and the Brazilian’s calmness under pressure brought him back into favour under Amorim towards the end of last season.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old does not have limitless energy but he was preferred to Christian Eriksen, who was about to leave the club, and, more significantly, Manuel Ugarte, who cost \u00a350.8m to sign from PSG less than 12 months ago, for the Europa League final against Tottenham in May, which United lost.<\/p>\n
It seems Amorim regards finding an upgrade in this area of the pitch to be more of a priority than replacing goalkeeper Andre Onana. <\/p>\n
That Amorim talks a good game is not in question. Now his team have to deliver.<\/p>\n
The target is clear. Amorim has said European qualification is the aim. His players have said the same. More importantly, a financial outlook provided for the club by an external agency spoke about delivering a place in the Europa League at the end of this season as a stepping stone to a return to the Champions League in 2027-28.<\/p>\n
It would be unfair to judge United’s season on one game, or even eight looking at that fixture list. But, as Amorim has previously said, he used up a lot of goodwill from the stands last season.<\/p>\n
He promised this season will be better. It has to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amorim could be excused for thinking someone is having a cruel joke at his expense when he assesses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-351077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115042808211495921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}