Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim has been criticised for his controversial decision to play Kobbie Mainoo as a false nine in the 0-2 defeat to Crystal Palace on Sunday.
The tactical switch caught many by surprise as United named a first eleven without a recognised striker.
Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee were both relegated to the bench and Mainoo was the most advanced player out of an attacking trio of Amad and Alejandro Garnacho.
Mainoo had impressed in the Europa League as a number 10 last week against FCSB, scoring and assisting Diogo Dalot.
The system seemed to be working quite well as the club’s attacking play was more fluid and Mainoo carved out a chance for Garnacho and hit the post himself inside the first 10 minutes of action. Unfortunately, the home side’s threat substantially dwindled and they only managed two shots on target in the entire match.
Commenting on the game, ESPN’s Julien Laurens questioned why Amorim decided to switch system when the club had no time to prepare, after being in action on Thursday night.
Speaking on ESPN’s Gabs and Jules Show he said, “they played in the Europa League on Thursday, they would have come back in the night between Thursday and Friday.”
“Friday you don’t train. Saturday you don’t train because you’re the day before the game, so they would have played in this formation now, with Kobbie Mainoo as a number nine without having worked on it at all, against a team that was in decent form, too. Why would you do this?!”
The pundit continued his scathing attack by claiming that Amorim is only making life more difficult for himself by making a series of unusual choices.
“There’s no justification for what you did. This is ridiculous. You’re shooting yourself in the foot. I have had enough of it already, man.”
“You’ve been there two minutes and you do silly things like this. This was stupid from Amorim. This was really silly. It made no sense whatsoever and he got punished for it and he deserved it.”
United’s new boss finds himself between a rock and a hard place as he does not want to abandon his 3-4-3 principles in similar fashion to how both Erik ten Hag and Louis van Gaal left behind their ideas early on in their tenure at United.
Nonetheless, while the Red Devils continue to lose and play poorly, it ramps up even more pressure on the former Sporting Lisbon manager.
Featured image Michael Regan via Getty Images
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
