Manchester United ignoring the reality of their failings is simply madness | OneFootball

At left wing-back, the player who won the Champions League as a No 10. At right wing-back, the forward who scored 20 Premier League goals last season. Manchester United finished Saturday’s defeat at Brentford with what could seem the latest example of Ruben Amorim’s determination to put the squarest of pegs in the roundest of holes but with yet another illustration that the system is paramount. Amorim may die upon a hill, if that hill is labelled 3-4-3. Wing-backs are here as long as he is, even if they aren’t really wing-backs.

Which, to compound the sense that Amorim’s dogma is holding United back, few are. Certainly not Mason Mount or Bryan Mbeumo, the duo who ended the Brentford game out of position. But not Diogo Dalot or Noussair Mazraoui, more often found there. Each has the willingness to give it a go, but is essentially a full-back. Perhaps Patrick Dorgu is, too, though it is harder to tell. Amad Diallo is a winger at heart; like Dalot and Mazraoui, his best role is rendered redundant by Amorim. He has to compromise to play.

And while Amorim has spent some £200m on new forwards, Mbeumo included, this summer, the wing-backs explain why his United are a low-scoring team. The Portuguese could point out that two of United’s three Premier League assists this season came from his wide men: Dalot for Mbeumo against Burnley, Dorgu for Casemiro against Chelsea.

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Ruben Amorim, following defeat at Brentford, faces another high-pressure match at home to Sunderland on Saturday (Getty Images)

Yet over his reign, there has been a lack of goals and assists from them; and given that Amorim has in effect taken out an attack-minded player from Erik ten Hag’s 4-2-3-1 formation to introduce a third centre-back, they were supposed to compensate. Dalot at least chipped in with goals in Europe last season but after Amorim’s appointment, he did not score and got just two assists in the Premier League; two more than the goalless duo of Dorgu and Mazraoui. Amad had seven goals and four assists but often – as with his hat-trick against Southampton, game-changing intervention in the Manchester derby or goal and assist against Aston Villa – as a No 10.

Nor, really, were the numbers deceptive. Under Amorim, Dalot had an xG per 90 minutes of 0.05 in the Premier League and an xA of 0.06. For Mazraoui, the corresponding figures were 0.03 and 0.06, for Dorgu 0.04 and 0.10. They are at least higher this season, helped by Dalot’s buccaneering display against Burnley.

But to put it another way, Amorim’s wing-backs had less threat than many an attacking full-back; during the same timeframe, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Pedro Porro had an expected assists per 90 minutes of 0.28. The list of completed crosses into the penalty area last season is led by a raft of full-backs – Antonee Robinson, Milos Kerkez, Porro, Vitalii Mykolenko – all way ahead of Amorim’s wing-backs. Between them, Dalot, Mazraoui an and Dorgu had nine shots on target in the 2024-25 top flight. Crystal Palace’s Daniel Munoz, of whom more later, had 14 on his own.

It amounted to a negligible attacking impact from the defenders Amorim needed to impersonate attackers. If it rendered it odder that, apart from the teenager Diego Leon, United did not buy a wing-back in the summer, it could also reflect two tactical quirks.

One is that, watching United, it can seem the gameplan is based on trying to get Dorgu in space on the ball; the flaw being that Dorgu is arguably the worst player on the ball in the team. There is the odd idiosyncrasy – in an otherwise hapless display against Athletic Bilbao at Old Trafford, for instance, he suddenly provided a delightful defence-splitting pass, before reverting to haplessness – but the statistics can indicate his ineffectiveness. The January signing has an 18.8 per cent success rate when dribbling at defenders this season; it was 23.1 per cent last season. He is, in effect, the United player least likely to beat an opponent.

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Patrick Dorgu has struggled to make an impact since joining the club last season (Reuters)

And the sides who play 3-4-3 successfully do tend to get both goals and incision in the final third from the wing-backs. The only Premier League champions to use that shape were Antonio Conte’s Chelsea. When they went forward, the front five included Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses, wing-backs going past the midfield. Moses was the converted winger. Alonso, with six goals and three assists, was directly involved in nine goals that season.

The English club who play 3-4-3 best now are Crystal Palace. Daniel Munoz – four goals, five assists – equalled Alonso’s return of nine last season and had a further three goal contributions in their FA Cup run.

Yet part of the confusion with United is who comprises the attacking quintet. Bruno Fernandes usually forms part of it; maybe Amorim’s decision to field his captain in the central-midfield duo is an indication he gets too little end product from the wing-backs, coupled with a recognition that he cannot rely just on the front three, especially after a season when they mustered just 44 league goals.

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Bruno Fernandes missed a penalty for the second time this season (Getty Images)

But having Fernandes attacking from midfield can leave a hole in the middle of the team when United lose the ball. Conte’s Chelsea, in contrast, had the solidity of N’Golo Kante alongside either Nemanja Matic or Cesc Fabregas to offer cover for the raiding wing-backs.

And when United chase a game with Mount and Mbeumo as wing-backs – rendered all the odder as the Englishman is neither a winger nor a full-back – it underlines the essential defect in the strategy. The ideology is put before the reality. Even with the regulars, Amad can be exposed defensively. The other supposed wing-backs offer too little in attack. And meanwhile, Amorim has dispensed with some of the wingers a potential successor may want.

Perhaps there is method behind the madness, or perhaps it is just madness.