Ruben Amorim has been warned about his late substitutions and their impact on his Manchester United players
Ruben Amorim has been cautioned against constantly altering Manchester United‘s defensive line-up during matches due to the risk of upsetting his squad. United secured a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Newcastle at Old Trafford on Boxing Day, recording just their second Premier League clean sheet of the campaign.
However, the Portuguese head coach came under fire after making multiple defensive switches in the second half as his side barely withstood a fierce late assault from their opponents. The substitutions included Lisandro Martinez and Luke Shaw being withdrawn for the relatively untested Tyler Fredricson and Tyrell Malacia late on, a decision which sparked surprise.
Ex-United goalkeeper Ben Foster has now urged Amorim to avoid making such alterations going forward, suggesting his players won’t have been pleased with the disruption.
Speaking on the Fozcast podcast, the former England and Wrexham stopper said: “Man United seem to make defensive changes a lot, weird ones as well. Maybe that’s just his way and he obviously sees something that no one else does.
“Fair play to him, he’s obviously getting the results at the moment. But I was thinking, why? If you ask professional footballers about what they think of that, they will tell you honestly and say you shouldn’t do that.
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“You don’t understand what it’s like being a team in those last dying moments, with seven or eight minutes to go. You don’t mess with it. Everybody knows where they are.
“They’ve played the game there and they’re comfy there. They know what’s working. You don’t need to just swap them for a defensive-minded player.”
Foster wasn’t the only ex-United star to question the peculiar substitutions. Red Devils icon Gary Neville also admitted he was bewildered by the team that ended the match.
Speaking on Sky Sports, Neville said: “I’d go as far as to say it’s the most bizarre Manchester United XI I’ve ever seen on the pitch at the end of a game. But they’re hanging in there. They’re fighting for their lives and Newcastle are pushing them.
“I thought Manchester United edged the first half. I thought they did really well, but then the substitutions came. The shape, the players on the pitch got even more bizarre, but they hung on.”
Amorim has remained committed to deploying a 3-4-2-1 system since taking charge at United, but shifted to a back four against Newcastle. Despite facing flak for his late-game changes, which saw the defence morph into a back six, Amorim insisted he was satisfied with the determination displayed by his squad.
He said: “I think we suffered all together. You can say that we defended well because we didn’t suffer the goal, but they had chances to score a goal. We needed a little bit of luck sometimes. We managed to defend, sometimes with a back six, but we suffered together and that is a good feeling.
“If we always have this spirit, we are going to win so many games. I think it’s something that we need, to feel that we can win sometimes without playing so well. We can win games with the spirit and with the togetherness in the team.”
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