{"id":212711,"date":"2025-12-27T00:41:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T00:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/212711\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T00:41:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T00:41:06","slug":"man-utd-change-style-and-win-as-ruben-amorim-says-we-suffered-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/212711\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Utd change style and win as Ruben Amorim says: ‘We suffered together’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a football idealist, Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim has specific beliefs about how the game should be played – and the best way to win.<\/p>\n

But his usual philosophy was not the one that brought the Christmas present of a 1-0 Premier League win over Newcastle.<\/p>\n

For one thing, there was the formation switch.<\/p>\n

Amorim joked in September that not even the Pope<\/a> could persuade him to change, but for the first time since he took charge 13 months ago, he fielded a back four.<\/p>\n

For another, victory was achieved with 33.4% possession, their lowest in any game this season. It was United’s lowest percentage of possession in a victory since the 29.4% they had when beating against Manchester City in January 2023.<\/p>\n

They had nine shots at Old Trafford compared to Newcastle’s 16. The visitors had 43 touches in their opponents’ box. Amorim’s men had 15.<\/p>\n

Yet it was Manchester United who prevailed, thanks to a combination of Patrick Dorgu’s first goal for the club – which was a sublime first-half volley from the edge of the area – and only a second clean sheet of the season.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t pretty. But even for Amorim, sometimes there are days when substance trumps style.<\/p>\n

“Yes,” was the unequivocal reply when asked if this was one of the ‘most satisfying’ wins of his, at times, tortuous 13 months in charge.<\/p>\n

“The feeling is good. If you compared to other games, we suffered so much more today but in certain moments we put everything on the line.<\/p>\n

“We are defending every cross. Especially if you see the second half, sometimes we managed to defend with a back six.<\/p>\n

“We had so many games when we controlled the opponent so much better, but it is a good feeling to have a clean sheet. We suffered together. If we always have this spirit, we are going to win so many games.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a football idealist, Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim has specific beliefs about how the game should…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-212711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}