Alejandro Garnacho’s Role Shift and Manchester United’s Struggles Under Ruben Amorim: A Focus on Adaptation and Goal Scoring Challenges
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Ruben Amorim
Manchester United’s Alejandro Garnacho, 20, made his first start in eight games in the FA Cup third round tie away to Arsenal. This was after being dropped from the matchday squad in the win at Manchester City on December 15 by Ruben Amorim, leading to uncertainty over the Argentine’s future. Garnacho, who was developed as a left-sided winger by United in their academy, has had to adjust to a new role in Amorim’s 3-4-3 formation as one of two No.10s behind the striker.
Ruben Amorim, when asked about Garnacho’s future at United, said “That is clear. He has talent. He needs to learn to play in a different position. He needs to play better inside.” He further added, “He improves a lot in the recovering position when he doesn’t have the ball. But doing that, sometimes he’s not in the right place to make transitions like he was in the past. I prefer to defend and then build up with all the team to reach the final third. He’s finding the best way to play in this system. He’s improving during training. He started the last game. Let’s see tomorrow. I think he changed the way he sees himself.”
United have not won a game in normal or extra time since the derby a month ago. They lost four games in succession before their recent uplifting draws with Liverpool and Arsenal, beating the latter on a penalty shootout to progress to the FA Cup fourth round. Amorim’s side play their first home game of 2025 against Southampton on Thursday night.
Amorim, reflecting on the team’s performance, said “I think we want to be a team that is hard to play. It’s like I had this feeling, especially at home in the last games, that we were easy to play. And we have to be honest with that. So that’s what I wanted. That’s what I felt in the last two games. It’s a [pride] thing. Yeah, I think that we need to think about that and we have to feel it.”
United have a goal difference of -5 and No.9 Rasmus Hojlund has managed only two Premier League goals all season – fewer than summer signing Joshua Zirkzee.
Amorim expressed his concern over the team’s lack of goals, saying “I think, again, we have a lack of goals. This team in the past scored a lot of goals from transition. Not from building up in the half of the opponent’s pitch. So we’ll see tomorrow. We have a lot to improve.” He further added, “I think we, as a team, are not used to spend a lot of time in the last third of the opponent. We had some games here that we lost and we had that control, but the threat was not there. And we have to have time to train that. And the players have to spend a lot of time during training, during the game, to be good at this moment. And if you see – and I saw a lot of games before – we scored a lot of goals like Garnacho doing transitions, Rashford. But then you see the difference of our goals is like always negative and it’s still negative. And I think that is the biggest problem in our team. The lack of goals and the lack of ability to play in the last third of the opponent, to control the games, to control more of the games. So we know that. We need time to train. We try to pass the information, but it’s harder for us to score in that way than in transitions.”
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