The long-standing frustration of watching Manchester United under Erik ten Hag was that there was a lack of clarity about what they were trying to do. Even though the results under his successor Ruben Amorim have not improved, that is no longer the case.
With four points from his four games in the lead, this is the same total as in Ten Hag's last four games. But Amorim has changed the formation and completely changed the way United try to build the game. “We are at the beginning,” he says.
Looking at the 3-2 defeat to Nottingham Forest at Old Trafford, United's first goal was the example – a goal that Amorim then highlighted. Matthijs de Ligt delayed his pass before finding Bruno Fernandes, whose first goal put away Manuel Ugarte.
“I know they need to have more confidence, not only to get the ball, but also to put the ball between the lines,” Amorim said at his press conference. “We did it in the goal. The first goal is such a play.” It didn't happen as often as he would have liked.
For a large part of the match, De Ligt searched in vain for that forward pass. Lisandro Martinez, for whom it is usually a hallmark of his game, also struggled to locate the midfielders. The two defenders exchanged a whopping 51 passes in the match, but things went nowhere quickly.
The player who received the next most passes from Martinez? André Onana, the goalkeeper. The top five passing combinations for United were all defensive players. Not unusual, but the small percentage of passes into the next zone was a major problem.
It has become a trend during Amorim's first weeks on the court. At Ipswich they attempted 69 percent of their passes into their own half, United's highest percentage in a Premier League match since Opta started collecting such records.
Their total of 449 attempted passes in their own half in that match is the most by any Premier League team this season. The next highest? That was the 433 against Everton. This is no coincidence. Amorim has told his team to focus on keeping the ball.
“The emphasis is on not losing the ball with sloppy passes.” The match against Forest was the third time since Amorim took over that they have registered a total of 600 passes. There have only been five other examples in the entire Premier League in that period.
The problem against Forest was that the opponent knew the plan and they were able to block the passing lanes to prevent those passes from going forward. This image shows the flow of United passes and shows that they hit a wall as they reached the halfway line.
“They try to do everything perfectly and then they find the right solution,” Amorim said. “But sometimes, against low blocks, you have to take the risk.” Do United currently have enough players capable of taking these risks successfully?
Amorim removed De Ligt late and replaced him with Harry Maguire, who tried to play with a little more urgency and took longer to find his passes. But his two far-reaching balls to the left wing were misdirected and United were unable to build any momentum.
Fernandes is obviously the biggest risk-taker in terms of possession, whose clever passing was the catalyst for both of his team's goals, the second of which he scored himself. Amorim felt obliged to replace him with Mason Mount because he was tiring.
“I understand that Bruno is very dangerous near the box, but he was tired in transitions,” Amorim explained. “I had the feeling with Mason Mount that he could also be good at set pieces. He can also score because he is very technical. And we needed fresh legs.”
Fernandes completed 75 percent of his passes – by far the lowest completion rate of any United player. But that's because he's trying to make things happen. Amorim got a taste of how passive United could look without him in the closing stages.
Ugarte's pass to put Alejandro Garnacho ahead in the build-up to their first goal was encouraging. He will have to do that more. But then they all will. Amorim is building his game from the back, but there is an awful lot of work to do. As he says, this is just the beginning.
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