Ruben Amorim has left Manchester United, but his legacy at the club continued as Darren Fletcher hinted at his role in dropping two points vs Burnley.
It was an extremely frustrating outing at Turf Moor for Manchester United, as they put Burnley under the cosh for large parts of the game without putting them down.
The 2-2 draw didn’t do justice to the performance, which was a throwback to the best of United in terms of vertical play, fearlessness, and Shea Lacey’s exciting cameo.
Who was your Man Utd MOTM vs Burnley?
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Darren Fletcher hinted after the game that the reason why United were slow to get going, however, had much to do with what happened before his arrival as interim manager.
Photo by Carl Recine/Getty ImagesDarren Fletcher hints at Ruben Amorim’s role in draw
Amorim got sacked by Man Utd for not being able to adjust to his players despite his system clearly leaving a lot to be desired.
However, changing it is not as easy as flipping a switch, especially in just two days after such a positionally rigid manager made way.
That was clear to see in the first 20 minutes or so against Burnley, as half the team looked like they didn’t know where they were playing.
Patrick Dorgu was a winger and wing-back, Matheus Cunha was a right-winger and an attacking midfielder, Luke Shaw was a centre-back and full-back, and Diogo Dalot was the same.
Once United played through that patch, the performance began to improve, and Fletcher put that down to the players having trouble coming out of Amorim’s system.
He said: “Our runs in behind, our movement, our chance-creation was good tonight. There was a lot of positive play. I think you can tell the players were used to playing in a different system for a while, so it’s not easy to adapt, and you can see the challenges that lie there, but that’s pretty normal.”
Unlearning “Amorim-isms” will be a big challenge
Amorim’s appointment was arguably the first time since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement that the club appointed a manager with such a clear style of play.
What should Darren Fletcher change for the next game, and what should he keep the same?
Darren Fletcher says he will take charge of Man Utd vs Brighton
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It’s great when it works, which was the hope, but when it doesn’t, it leaves the players and the club in no-man’s land.
The next manager’s biggest challenge will be to get the players to unlearn the automatisms of Amorim’s system, which is easier said than done.
Had they perfected those automatisms, changing it would have been easy, since they could just put those in the back of their mind while thriving in a more fluid system.
However, they didn’t learn them fully, but they also spent too much time working on it, which results in a confusing game state where the players are stuck between two systems.
Fletcher would be encouraged to see how quickly United improved after a stutter at the start of the game, because the only way to unlearn these “Amorim-isms” is playing more minutes in a different system.
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