“The manager,” said Ayden Heaven. “We play loads of formations with him. Whatever he does we know it’s going to work.” It may be harsh to critique the words of a teenager unaccustomed to being interviewed immediately after high-profile Premier League matches, especially when he was presumably eager to avoid criticising the man who picks the team.
The counter-argument, however, is that for 13 months of Ruben Amorim’s reign, Manchester United played one formation and, more often than not, it did not work. The obituaries for his time at Old Trafford promised to say that he perished playing 3-4-3 and nothing but 3-4-3. And yet, fresh from beating Newcastle, Amorim used a word that did not seem to belong in his vocabulary: adapt.
He showed he can. United’s last two games at Old Trafford have seen them play with a back four; first in a 4-4-2 system in the 4-4 draw with Bournemouth, then a 4-2-3-1 in the 1-0 win over Newcastle. Slightly inconveniently, given his devotion to an increasingly infamous tactic, the first brought arguably United’s most vibrant attacking display of the campaign and the second perhaps their most defiant defensive effort.
After the Bournemouth match, Amorim stopped short of confirming he had backed down; perhaps his stubbornness would not permit him to accept it. Yet, unprompted (and perhaps unnoticed, as it was on Christmas Eve), he talked about playing a back four. Then he did on Boxing Day. Which is a sizeable volte face. In August, Amorim said he would only change shape when his players were so good at 3-4-3, they could do it with their eyes closed. In recent weeks, against Everton and West Ham, there was little sense United had perfected it.
Nor, indeed, have they mastered any other. Yet they have demonstrated the different merits of them. When Amad Diallo opened the scoring against Bournemouth, it was because he was playing as a winger, not a wing-back. As United had 25 shots, it showed they were able to get more men forward. There was a contrasting case study against Newcastle: without the ball, United illustrated that the simplest defensive structure can involve two banks of four. And if a lumpen 4-4-2 has its limitations in possession, United’s loss of many of their premier personnel meant they had to concentrate on defence anyway.
Amorim adapted. He reacted: to circumstances, to context. There was a pragmatism to it, looking for a way to win when his squad was depleted by injuries and the African Cup of Nations. With Bruno Fernandes missing, for once, Amorim did not have a natural No 8. But the formation allowed him to get more bodies around the two defensive midfielders, Manuel Ugarte and Casemiro, and prevent them from being too exposed. Had he played 3-4-3, surely Newcastle’s far stronger midfield would have dominated.
But the problem with Amorim’s sudden shift in thinking is that it could have come at almost any stage earlier, and it probably would have benefited United. Of the squad he inherited who, apart from the injury-prone Mason Mount and Harry Maguire, would prefer a 3-4-3 formation? It doesn’t include the best position of a host of players, whether Amad, Diogo Dalot, Noussair Mazraoui or the now departed Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho. For the centre-backs happiest in a pair or the central midfielders who seemed suited more to being in a trio, it presented issues. Amorim displayed a determination to stuff square pegs into round holes (a habit that has not entirely deserted him, as he now uses Leny Yoro as a right-back in a quartet, although Patrick Dorgu got Friday’s winner as an ersatz right winger).
As a team, too often United seemed to have too few players where they needed them in a 3-4-3: sometimes outnumbered in midfield because they had a spare centre-back, or too short in attack, or on the flanks. Some of that could be attributed to a lack of familiarity with Amorim’s ideas and demands.
But some to an exercise in obstinacy. This has been a failure of philosophy. United have been crippled by doctrine, testing a theory by refusing to admit any other had a validity. There have been some occasions when he has shifted to more of a hybrid shape.
And yet the last two matches at Old Trafford feel an admission Amorim was wrong; or at least misguided in being so inflexible. But he cannot say that, because it means that the previous 13 months were wasted.
Even with everything else that was wrong – the chaos of Erik ten Hag’s final 14 months, the poor recruitment, the culture of underachievement at the club, the poor decisions taken by first the Glazers and then Sir Jim Ratcliffe at boardroom level, the pressure that stalks United – they arguably could have finished in the top eight playing with a back four last season. Instead, they came 15th.
Last December, playing 3-4-3, they lost at Old Trafford to Bournemouth and Newcastle. Now they have four points from the corresponding fixtures. It is a change in fortunes. But it helps that, belatedly, Amorim has been adaptable enough to change shape.
