After breaking a 62-year record of sustaining five league defeats in a calendar month for the first time since 1962, Manchester United will enter the New Year in complete disarray.
A precarious financial situation, made worse by Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s severe cost-cutting endeavours, means there’s little opportunity for Ruben Amorim to bolster his squad how he desires in the January transfer window. As such, he’ll be working with a team mostly filled with Erik ten Hag signings until summer 2025.
While the side’s performances in his newly implemented 3-4-3 system have raised the eyebrows of fans, Amorim essentially has a free pass until the end of the campaign due to the circumstances surrounding his appointment.
Joining in November when Ten Hag had already done significant damage, as well as been granted another £200 million to splurge on chosen transfers, left the new head coach navigating a nigh-on impossible task to somehow restore United to a European football-chasing squad.
Gary Neville urges Amorim to reinforce two positions
When the time does come that INEOS allow Amorim to have a say on the market, Gary Neville believes there are two positions that need addressing immediately.
“Look, you could say get a world-class centre-forward, get [Alexander] Isak, but that’s never going to happen,” he told the Sky Sports panel after being pressed on United’s potential transfer business.
“I think if you were starting, you have to start with the fundamentals of this system, which is the wing-backs. They hold it together.
“If you don’t have the wing-backs functioning up and down, that are able to attack and defend equally as good – and there aren’t many of those around, by the way, because there aren’t many teams who play wing-backs – then you’re going to struggle. So you need two quite unique players in those wide areas, and I think that’s the starting point.
“That’s nothing against [Noussair] Mazraoui and [Diogo] Dalot, they’re very willing and doing the best job that they can. But to me, they’re the two areas [that need addressing] in this system.”
