Ruben Amorim feels rotation over the next month will help speed up the process of Manchester United’s players becoming accustomed to his style of football.
Amorim started his tenure with a 1-1 draw at Ipswich on Sunday where Marcus Rashford’s 81-second opener failed to inspire a triumphant debut for the former Sporting Lisbon boss.
Various principles of the 39-year-old were on display in Suffolk, with three centre-backs deployed alongside the use of wing-backs, but United were indebted to two excellent Andre Onana saves to claim a point.
💬 "We will improve in the future."
Post-match reaction from the boss ⤵️#MUFC || #IPSMUN
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) November 24, 2024
There is no time for the Portuguese coach to settle into his role at the 12th-place club with seven Premier League fixtures in December alongside two Europa League ties and a Carabao Cup quarter-final at Tottenham.
However, Amorim plans to regularly shuffle his pack every three days and work specifically with the players out of his starting line-up to turnaround their fortunes.
“We have to find a way. I think the only way to do it is we have games and the guys that don’t play have training,” Amorim said.
“Everybody is going to play and everybody is going to be on the bench, so they have the feeling of the game, but they need to train.
“With this schedule, we need to rotate the team. So, we will try to use that to train, to improve the team and to win matches. That is the point.
“Without time, we have to find the time and I think this is the only way. Some of the guys are going to play, some of the guys on the next day will work on our idea and then they will change the position.”
One major positive for the new United boss was Amad Diallo’s performance in an unfamiliar right wing-back role.
Diallo burst forward inside two minutes to create the breakthrough for Rashford’s goal and was largely solid defensively against Ipswich’s marauding left-back Leif Davis.
Amorim added: “He improves a lot. Since these three days, he improve so much defensively but for him, the opponent that he had all the time was the left-back.
“So, it’s like a winger that follows the left-back and it is so much easier I think because he doesn’t have to think, ‘can I jump on the centre-back or not?’, he just follows one guy and goes forward with the same guy.
“It’s like a game of man-to-man in that area. He was so focused on everything and I think he did a great job.”
Sunday’s draw was bittersweet for former United first-team coach Kieran McKenna, who watched his Ipswich team battle back for a point thanks to Omari Hutchinson’s deflected 43rd-minute strike.
Onana’s two moments of brilliance to thwart Liam Delap either side of half-time denied Ipswich a first home win in the Premier League this season, but with fixtures against Crystal Palace, Bournemouth and Newcastle at Portman Road over the next fortnight, McKenna knows what is required.
“I think a pretty good step is being hard to beat, being competitive, making this a really difficult place to come and imposing ourselves on the opposition, but we also need to win some home games,” McKenna said.
“That’s what we’re trying to do. Look, we’ve had four draws here. I think we could have won all four.
“We should have won one for me that isn’t debatable in the Leicester game and you take out the other three draws, par score is probably winning at least one if things fall your away.
“Yeah, we don’t feel we are far away but it is another step.”
