With it looking like the Amorim deal will be announced at some point today I just wanted to reflect on everything that has happened this year with our club, and some thoughts on the future.
The whole club sale and the new football management structure is something we have been crying out for nearly 15 years. Some fans like myself and Red Man amongst others even pointed out before SAF had departed that the club needed to embrace a new structure that could continue success after SAF steps aside.
So its better late than never. Yet as fans we probably need to be mindful that while a lot has changed over the past few months, it’ll likely take another 12-18 months for all of the changes to bed in fully and for us to start seeing consistent improvements from it.
I’ve seen some fans already question some of the decisions made, such as extending EtH’s contract or the selling of Alvaro Fernandez for example. In hindsight it’s hard to argue that these weren’t errors. But it’s important to remember that no one gets everything right all the time. The new people in charge will make mistakes, to err is to be human.
What is important is that firstly they learn from their mistakes, and secondly that we as fans still support and back them.
The only thing we as fans have any control over with regards to our football club is what we say about it. We don’t get to pick the manager, or the team, the tactics or the shiny new signings. We all have opinions on them, but those opinions count for very little in the actual running of the club.
However, what we say and discuss online does help to build a narrative and atmosphere around our club. Unfortunately over the past decade or so we have all been guilty at times of contributing towards the negativity that has made it much harder for our club to find any sort of stability. A lot of that is media led, we are sometimes far to eager to lap up a media narrative that supports our feelings of anger and frustration. Allowing ourselves to be the puppets of the media with them pulling at our strings.
We need to be better than that. We need to support our club, even through the mistakes. That way we help provide the stability needed for those people to learn from those mistakes and correct them. The instability only means those people get sacked and replaced by someone who will make the same mistakes as their predecessors as we never give anyone the chance to learn from those errors.
Remembering the context behind decisions when they were made will help us to appreciate why certain decisions were made.
The EtH contract extension for example happened before Barrada and Ashworth were in place to have much of a say. The club had spoken to many different managers and was unable to find the right man who was willing to take the job. Maybe because key men like Barrada and Ashworth weren’t insitu to give input into the role and direction of the club. Either way once they were unable to come up with a suitable candidate it was clear that sticking with what they had was better than potentially hiring the wrong man. But they had undermined the managers position and had to do something as a show of faith to fend of the media sharks who were circling having smelt blood in the water. A new deal/ extension was the only real option as a show of faith.
While it was only an additional year, it would also give people like Barrada and Ashworth the chance to take up their roles and bed in before they could make a decision further down the line.
Yes it’s cost us more money to sack him now, but at least now we have a manager chosen by the key men at the club. Ideally I think they’d have hoped this could have waited until nearer the end of the season. But life doesn’t always pan out as you planned. It’s probably better this way than if they hired the wrong manager in the summer and the club would have had to stick with that new man for much longer than they did with EtH this season.
It was also one less upheaval over the summer for the club to deal with. Yes it’s frustrating as fans, but even with the mess it caused it might still have been the right choice.
Much like with Alvaro Fernandez. He does look more suited to being a wingback and while he looked good during pre-season there were still clear weaknesses in his game that only playing regularly at a high level would be able to iron out.
If he wasn’t guaranteed to be playing regularly with us, and if the manager didn’t fancy him then allowing him to move on was the right decision. Even if we could still see that we had weaknesses in that position. Yes he’s exploded for Benfica and he looks great in the Portuguese league playing for one of the best and most dominant sides in the league.
Would he have had the same chances at United? Probably not and the situation he’d be playing in would have been very different. The reality might be that our club didn’t have the right atmosphere/ situation for him to flourish in.
Yet the club retained a buy-back clause in his contract, so we still have an element of control over his future. If the new manager feels he’d be an ideal player for his team then we can bring him back if he wants to come. Which is something else we should consider, maybe he wanted to leave in the summer. We’ve all said that we shouldn’t be keeping players who don’t want to be here.
Hindsight doesn’t really work as there is no way of telling how things would have actually planned out if done differently. Hindsight gives the false impression that things would 100% be better if done differently. Yet in truth there is no telling whether it would be or not.
He could have stayed and not played, or played and been terrible, lost his confidence and not improve or develop as a player. Then we could have been stuck with a player whose value has dropped and who probably doesn’t want to be here.
That brings us to the appointment of Amorim, or at least to the cusp of his appointment.
So what things am I looking forward to under the new manager.
Firstly I’m looking forward to a new tactical identity. I actually think his system is well suited to the majority of our players, even if there are still question marks over whether those players are ultimately good enough to get us to where we want to be.
I actually think that over the next few years we will see a resurgence of the 343 shape, I think that will become the new meta in football.
Amorim along with Alonso, Inzaghi and Hoeness are probably the four most promising young managers in world football, all using a variant of the 343 shape. While other prominent managers such as Tuchel and Naglesmann have used that shape to great success. All without it being a defensive style in the same way that maybe Conte has used that shape.
We actually might be one of the first “big” clubs to hire a manager and commit to that new style. Maybe making us a pioneer and innovators rather than followers trying to catch up.
For me that’s very exciting and a potential huge positive.
I’m also looking forward to having a charasmatic manager. While it’s hard to admit it but I have been jealous at times watching press conferences for rival managers like Klopp who seem to charm the media and by extension create a positive feeling around the club.
Finally I’m looking forward to seeing how this young team develops. While lots has been made about “poor” recruitment under EtH I’m not wholly convinced it has been anywhere near as bad as it’s made out.
We’ve replaced AWB with Mazraoui. That’s an obvious upgrade.
We’ve replaced McTominay, Donny, Fred and Matic with Casemiro, Ugarte, Mount and Eriksen. That’s an improvement.
We’ve replaced Bailly, Jones and Varane with Martinez, MdL and Yoro. Again that’s a huge improvement.
We’ve replaced Martial and Cavani with Højlund and Zirkzee. With time that will almost certainly prove to be an upgrade.
We’ve also added young players like Mainoo, Amad and Garnacho to our squad from the academy. With others such as Collyer, Amass, Obi-Martin and Lacey all pushing to be the next one to breakthrough.
We have a core of young talented players ready to be moulded into a potentially great team. If we can continue to replace and upgrade more players in this squad to create a more talented and coherent squad able to play a successful style of play then things are really looking up.
I remember a few years ago when the Arsenal supporting Ed said he wouldn’t trade Arsenal’s young squad for ours, many of us laughed. Yet looking at how those young players developed at Arsenal and what they have become now it’s clear to see why he had the opinion.
I feel similarly about this young group, I think we have potential future stars in players like Yoro, Mainoo, Amad, Garnacho and Højlund.
With others potentially to join either from the academy or from other clubs.
I look forward to seeing how a positive, progressive young manager like Amorim who has a record of giving youth a chance ans developing them does with this exciting young group of players. All at a club that looks to be turning a page and starting a fresh new chapter in our history.
Written by Shappy November 01 2024 15:25:08
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