Ruben Amorim made a big call. Now he has to walk a tightrope
Sometimes the traits that earn managers bigger jobs can be the same traits that prevent them from succeeding at those jobs
Ruben Amorim was insisting that he wasn’t making a statement with his team selection but you’d be forgiven for not believing him. Amorim made waves Sunday morning when he left Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho out of the squad for the Manchester Derby. They weren’t relegated to the bench, they were out of the squad completely.
Rashford had started 12 of United’s 15 Premier League matches this season with Garnacho starting 10. Coming into the match Rashford had a team high four Premier League goals with Garnacho a joint second with three. Of Rashford’s four goals three of them came in his two Premier League starts under Amorim.
Historically, both players had shouts to play against this opponent. Rashford had scored five goals in 12 Premier League starts against City. He scored at the Ethiad last season in a match where he provided United’s only attacking threat. Meanwhile Garnacho scored United’s first goal in the FA Cup final last season as well as providing the goal in the Community Shield which were the last two times these two teams met.
History against an opponent only does so much. The reality is neither player deserved to start the match based on their recent form. Rashford has looked decent when playing more centrally under Amorim - especially with Joshua Zirkzee - but he’s never really gelled with Rasmus Hojlund. As the pair were unimpressive Thursday night against Viktoria Plzeň, there was no compelling argument for Zirkzee’s inclusion. And Rashford has simply not been good enough for the team to be built around him.
A similar claim can be made with Garnacho, who has not been very impressive in his appearances under Amorim. That Garnacho has also recently been involved in some online controversy regarding his social media usage and allegedly leaking team news to certain accounts does not put him in the best standing at the moment.
And so Amorim made the call to drop them both. If the decision galvanized the United team, it took a while to show. United barely threatened City for 83 minutes on Sunday. The one exception was Amad Diallo and it was fitting he’s the one that made everything happen - winning a penalty and then scoring a sensational winner.
Amad did not start in place of Rashford or Garnacho but his heroics served to vindicate Amorim’s ballsy decision.
It’s not uncommon for a new manager to look to make a statement early in his tenure. In fact United don’t have to look far to find another example, though Ruben Amorim would be wise to also view the cautionary tale behind it.
Two seasons ago new manager Erik Ten Hag lost his first two games of the season and the heat was already growing with a clash against Liverpool. Ten Hag made a big call for the match dropping Cristiano Ronaldo and the club’s captain Harry Maguire, as United pulled off a shock 2-1 win.
Ten Hag was a no-nonsense guy with a my-way-or-the-highway approach. United’s win over Liverpool seemed to validate that his approach was correct and empower him to continue. Ten Hag would continue to rule in this way the rest of his United tenure.
My way or the highway only works if you’re winning, and for a coach it’s very easy to take it too far. Ten Hag would later fall out with Ronaldo, banning him from using the first team dressing room - a punishment that some senior stars reportedly considered excessive. A year later he did the same with Jadon Sancho which was reportedly met with the same reaction in the dressing room. Ten Hag also allegedly had falling outs with other senior players like Raphael Varane, Marcus Rashford, and David de Gea. De Gea’s departure may have been necessary and a long time coming, but the way it was handled by Ten Hag reportedly left a lot of players angry. De Gea was a leader in the team and very popular figure in the dressing room, but for Ten Hag, my way or the highway.
Ten Hag’s missteps were not uncommon for managers making the jump he made and Ruben Amorim is part of the same bucket. Both were considered up and coming managers thriving in smaller leagues with some nice European results to their names. Now they were making the jump to some of the biggest teams in Europe.
This is a very tricky jump because so often these managers get their start in a similar way. They’re given an opportunity to fix a sinking club, they have some success and move to one of the big clubs in a smaller league. When they first begin, they’re usually looking at a bunch of ragtag players1 and thinking, if I’m going to turn this around I need to make these players better than what they are. The only way to do that is for everyone to collectively buy in to what I’m saying. If you’re not going to do that, I don’t have time for you.
The manager has two advantages at this level. The first is it’s not all that difficult to move players on. Contracts are short and cheap. If a player isn’t going to fall in line it’s not difficult to sell him or just not renew his contract.
The biggest advantage they have - and this remains true even when they take a step up to those big mid tier clubs - is that they’re all playing for the same team. With all due respect to clubs like Ajax, Sporting, Benfica, Lille, Atalanta, RB Salzburg, or even to a certain extent Borussia Dortmund, these clubs are not the end game for either the players or the managers. They all want to use the club as a springboard to Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, or a Premier League club for the simple reason that that’s where the money is2.
Managers at this level find themselves with teams full of players who never got that big paycheck. They’ve never won those big trophies. They’ve never made it to the top level. Every player has some sort of flaw that has prevented them from getting there so far. The idea is is you’ll do it all together. You buy in with the manager and when the club wins those big money moves will come. The managers don’t leave anything up to chance. They want complete control of everything, not just on the pitch but off it. What time the players are eating, what the players are eating, how they’re preparing for the match, everything. Every little thing that you can exploit to gain an advantage you go after.
That doesn’t sound bad at all, but when you move up to a club like Manchester United it’s a completely different ballgame in terms of the players you’re dealing with. The players you’re inheriting aren’t trying to make it to the top level, they already have. Whether that’s a player like Bruno Fernandes or Lisandro Martinez who came up through smaller clubs and got a big move, or Marcus Rashford who rose through the academy to be 12th on the club’s list of all time goal scorers.
None of these players are here by accident3. They don’t need to be taught how to play football, they don’t need to be taught how to conduct themselves off the pitch, they don’t need to be taught how important training is. If any of them didn’t take these things seriously they wouldn’t have made it to this level.
While the media and fans focus on the tactical system a coach deploys, the tactics mean nothing if the manager can’t get buy in. Securing that buy in is a lot different when you’ve got players with more experience at this level than you do. The only way to guarantee you’ll get it is to win and keep winning.
Casemiro played in four Champions League winning teams. Casemiro’s preparation for each game is incredibly meticulous down to the finest details. He doesn’t need to sit in hour long meetings about each opponent because he knows the level of preparation he needs to do for each match. He doesn’t need a coach telling him what to eat because he knows what he should and shouldn’t eat to perform at this level.
He’ll sit in these meetings and give the coach a chance so long as the club is winning. But once they stop winning, it’s only normal for him to start doubting or questioning the coach. After-all, he has more experience at this level than the coach does.
Or Marcus Rashford who established himself as United’s top attacker. In Ten Hag’s first season the attacked was built around him he scored a career best 17 Premier League goals and 30 in all competitions. He was rewarded with a new (ill-advised) contract that said we are going to pay you as if we are building the team around you.
With the club handing Rashford that kind of contract, one would presume they would continue making Rashford the focal point of the attack. So when the following season the manager changes tactics to the detriment of Rashford, the message is a bit unclear. When those tactics aren’t working, the team isn’t winning, and most importantly, no one is scoring goals, you end up with a player questioning wtf we’re trying to do.
A new manager has every right to decide he doesn’t want to build his attack around Rashford but he still must tread carefully. Rashford’s contract will make him very difficult to move, so while he doesn’t need to be a key player, you still need to make sure the relationship is amicable. The situation with De Gea is a illustration of a situation where the correct decision can be reached, but its poor handling still causes a negative effect in the dressing room. If Rashford is marginalized and United are still struggling for goals, players will start getting antsy.
That’s not to say this my way or the highway style can’t work at the top level. Jose Mourinho, Thomas Tuchel, Antonio Conte have all had success with it. But those managers have proven to be very expensive for their teams, demanding lot of money be spent on expensive players and typically having a shelf life of only two years. It’s not a sustainable method if you’re trying to build something long term.
On the other side, we’ve also seen several mega clubs go down the club legend route where they hire a former player who has very little experience. Real Madrid hired Zinedine Zidane, Barcelona had Xavi, and Juventus had a season Andrea Pirlo. All had various degrees of success depending on how you define it.
Most recently we’ve seen it with Bayern Munich. Julian Nagglesmann was the up and coming tactician hired away from RB Leipzig. He won the Bundesliga but was let go midway through his second season because he just didn’t connect with the dressing room. In came Tuchel who somehow managed to not win the Bundesliga, before turning to the seemingly unqualified Vincent Kompany.
Kompany’s little managerial experience came with Anderlecht as well as securing promotion, and then relegation with Burnley. Nothing about Kompany screamed top manager yet he’s got Bayern back to playing some great football at the top of the Bundesliga. The simple reason why Kompany is having success and why none of the other ‘club legends’ completely flopped is because they know exactly how to relate to players that play in top teams.
Kompany understands he has to treat players at Bayern differently than players at Burnley. Hell, he can’t even treat all the Bayern players the same way. He has to take a step back from micro-managing. Give the players more freedom and trust that the players will still put in the work to prepare for each match even away from the training ground.
This is the tightrope these “young” coaches have to walk. You want to establish your presence. You want to establish things are going to be different and that you know what you’re doing.
At the same time, you need to be flexible enough to understand these players are different than the ones you’ve managed before. This likely requires a change at the club level as well. If you’ve hired a manager who is making the step up from a smaller league, and has never managed top level players before, then maybe you don’t want to sign players from the other mega clubs. Perhaps you want to focus on someone like Michael Olise, a player who also deserves to be at a mega-club but will have just as much experience at one of those clubs as the manager.
The fact that Amorim was willing to drop not just one but both Rashford and Garnacho displays a boldness that is required if you’re going to be a success at a top club. That the move worked out for him is great.
But football is a what have you done for me lately game. That move may have made a point in the dressing room but that point will be forgotten quickly if the club doesn’t keep winning. Amorim established himself but his success will be determined based on his understanding of how often he can play this card.
If there’s a lesson to be learned from Ten Hag it’s don’t lay down the hammer on too many players at once. At this level, you can’t afford to fall out with everyone. You can’t move players on from Manchester United as easily as you could in smaller leagues. If a player doesn’t want to leave, they won’t—and if they stay while their replacement struggles, frustration will spread among their teammates.
An authoritarian, my way or the highway approach only works in doses. Concessions must be made to adapt your methods. This balancing act is why many promising young managers often falter—or fail entirely. Walking that tightrope is one of football’s toughest challenges.
Think the way Gordon Bombay originally found the District-Five hockey team, but with professional players
Barcelona will pay you a lot of money even though we know the money is not there. Somehow this still hasn’t blown up in their faces yet.
Except maybe Antony, who’s old boss got a promotion and decided to take him along.
I have been following most of your articles for more than a year now, but to be honest... This time it feels so different. It's a whole new perspective that I haven't really pondered about. As football fans, we tend to overtly focus on only the football aspect. But off the pitch, and synergy with other players and status of who is who always seems to be equally important. Thank you so much, I have learnt a whole lot from this.
Imo, if we're going to move on from Rashford, I hope we resolve it as amicably as possible. He's a club legend and he deserves to be treated as such.
I get coddling the players if they have achieved things, but to be honest, what have they really done together? Not a whole lot. A lot of that is ETH's fault, but the truth is that most of these players are not good enough, and the ones that were good enough once are on the decline. I can understand cutting Garnacho some slack even if I think he's a poor fit for the team and should be sold next summer while his stock is still high, but Rashford is 27 years old, he's a senior player at the club, he should be setting examples and if he can't, then a hard line is warranted.
Edit: I'll add, "what have you done for me lately" goes both ways. Rashford cannot claim to be "United's best attacker" anymore when his form has slumped so badly and he's compounded his problem with attitude issues. He's going to be our Raheem Sterling, a guy who lingers around, impossible to move, who can't contribute the way he could, with his contract waited our or sent out on loans.