Ruben Amorim doing âsomething differentâ against Tottenham feels hugely significant for Manchester United.
Tottenhamâs last 19 Premier League games at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium comprise three wins, four draws and 12 defeats. Itâs a harrowing run which would ordinarily make firm Manchester United favourites amid their promising uptick in form.
But the Red Devil somehow contriving to lose not once, not twice or even thrice to Spurs last season but four times, combined with Amorimâs side winning just once away from home this term, makes this a particularly hard game to call, with their respective impossible-to-gauge quality making it near impossible.
Much of the criticism aimed at Amorim in his time at Manchester United, before the improvement of late which saw him named Manager of the Month for October, has been based around his obstinacy.
Itâs 3-4-3 or bust and itâs typically been the latter. Heâs stubbornly refused to deviate from his formation and philosophy, and while we donât expect that to change too much against Tottenham, it could feel a tad perverse to some that â as he admitted in a pre-match interview â heâs made changes to his team with the aim of âdoing something differentâ on the back of three wins and a draw in his last four games.
âWeâve been working on it this week,â he added, and thatâs a luxury he has over Thomas Frank and most of the other managers of teams vying for places towards the top of the Premier League, with no European football this season granting him the space to make tactical tweaks and work on new things midweek to make the push for qualification this season.
Amorim made three changes to his starting line-up, with Harry Maguire, Noussair Mazraoui and Patrick Dorgu all returning in place of Leny Yoro, Diogo Dalot and Benjamin Sesko, who drop to the bench.
MORE MANCHESTER UNITED COVERAGE ON F365
đ Partyâs over, Pep: Five tactical throwbacks we want to see follow long throws
đ Man Utd: Amorim informs INEOS of âeliteâ January signing demand as Romano reveals Mainoo update
đ Berbatov issues warning to Neville over âwell off itâ Manchester United star as he âhas everythingâ
Perhaps the changes have been made in a bid to replicate their performance against Liverpool, where the lack of a focal point caused no end of problems for Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate, or maybe Tottenhamâs insipid display vs Chelsea prompted him to pack his team full of pressers to push a panicking Spurs into ceding possession as regularly as they did against the Blues.
But after Amorim naming an unchanged side against Nottingham Forest for the first time in the Premier League was a landmark call to show why Manchester United should be in the running for a return to the Champions League, so too is this newfound will to do âsomething differentâ.
It points to a level of comfort, from Amorim in his players and from his players in him. Having taken a very long time to come to terms with the basics of his philosophy, theyâve now reached a stage where Amorim believes he can make adjustments to the blueprint for individual games.
