Ruben Amorim Tactics: What System Does Amorim Play at Manchester United?
Like many other managers who have attempted to make their mark in the post-Ferguson era, Ruben Amorim has endured a rocky time in charge of Manchester United.
Since taking over the job in November 2024 after Erik Ten Hag’s disappointing tenure came to an end, the Portuguese coach has failed to deliver consistent performances and results that reflect the quality and resources United have at their disposal, with the club's run to the final of the Europa League failing to distract from the misery of finishing a lowly 15th in the 2024/25 Premier League season.
While there have been some promising moments and flashes of brilliance from star players like Bruno Fernandes, it's clear that things have been nowhere near good enough.
And much of the criticism levelled at Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United side comes down to their tactical rigidity and commitment to a system that often simply does not work.
That's why in this article, we’re going to break down the system Amorim has employed at Old Trafford and why he chooses to set his team up in this way. We’ll work through the main strengths and weaknesses of his approach and explain what the overall mission is for Amorim’s United.
What System Does Amorim Play at Manchester United?
Ruben Amorim came to United with a glowing reputation developed over several successful seasons at Primeira Liga heavyweight Sporting CP. The young coach led the Lisbon giants to their first league title in 19 years at the age of just 36, and followed that trophy win with three domestic cups and another league title victory in 2023/24.
When he departed the club in November 2024, his side remained top of the Primeira Liga with a 100% record so far that season.
Throughout this period of dominance, "Sporting played a 3-4-3 formation — or more specifically, a 3-4-2-1 — based on high possession, flexible attacking approaches and a strong defensive foundation," according to The Athletic.
His team was highly press-resistant, "and only Manchester City and Inter Milan averaged more than Sporting's 74.9 touches per opposition tackle in 2023-24" (a popular metric for measuring a team's ability to play out from the back).
Amorim has attempted to replicate the success he had in Portugal by playing a similar system in the Premier League, using a tightly structured back three, attack-minded wing-backs, a central midfield partnership, and a more narrow front three. There's an emphasis on keeping possession, and a preference for quick attacking transitions.
Natural shifts in shape when a team moves from its in-possession shape to its out-of-possession shape mean that sometimes this formation will be described as a 3-4-3, whereas on other occasions it will be viewed as a 5-2-3 shape.
According to BBC Sport tactics correspondent Umir Irfan, Amorim’s system is a “positional 5-2-3 system, asking players to stick to rigid zones. His wing-back stays wide. His central midfield stays central. There are minimal rotations within his team.”
This lack of rotation is one of the key differences between Amorim's United and Amorim's Sporting. One thing that has stayed the same is a desire to create overloads across the pitch, with Irfan adding that "he aims to get the better of opponents [by creating] areas on the pitch in which his team have more players than the opponents, such as the flanks".
The Strengths of Amorim’s System
When it comes to modern patterns of play, the idea of creating overloads in key areas of the pitch is absolutely crucial. This is one of the main things Amorim tries to do with his system, and his teams are particularly good at generating overloads in wide areas, as there's a heavy emphasis on wing play in his 3-4-3 shape.
With talented wide players like Amad Diallo and Matheus Cunha at his disposal, on paper, it makes sense to target these areas.
Amorim's system also relies heavily on carefully coordinating passing patterns that are rehearsed on the training ground and consistently implemented on matchday. According to Irfan, there's one move in particular that the Red Devils regularly opt for: “United build with three at the back.
These defenders look to play a straight pass into the feet of attackers, who look to lay it off to a team-mate - often a central midfielder - who then looks for a through ball over the top. In the coaching world, this is sometimes referred to as an 'up-back-through', referencing the pass up the pitch, the pass backwards, then the through ball.”
There are some similarities between this passing structure and the kind of press-baiting techniques used by Brighton & Hove Albion under innovative coach Roberto De Zerbi.
And having these pre-coordinated passing structures can be very useful, leaving players with a clear plan of how the coach wants them to progress the ball and create chances.
It also allows them to be direct, utilising the strengths of talented forwards like Bryan Mbuemo by playing direct passes up to the attacker in order to try to entice the opposition centre-back to follow the attacker and create space in behind. These types of direct passes have consistently been deployed by Amorim's players.
The rigidity we mentioned earlier — where players are asked to stay within specified zones rather than switching too much between different areas of the pitch — is crucial to the way United have been playing recently.
The benefit of this approach is that it creates one vs one duals all over the pitch, and when your team is full of extremely talented players capable of outperforming their opposite number, this is hugely advantageous.
It's what allowed Amorim's Sporting side to dominate the Portuguese league for a sustained period of time; however, in the more competitive and physical English Premier League, Amorim's system has frequently failed to get the best out of the players available.
The Weaknesses of Amorim’s System
There’s an obvious flaw with the rigid positional approach Amorim uses, in that many elite coaches like to create overloads using positional fluidity, but United simply don't have that.
Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City teams have often been at their best when John Stones drifts from right-back into central midfield, creating overloads in the middle of the pitch and dragging opponents away from where they want to be.
The same could be said for Mikel Arteta's Arsenal side, who have repeatedly got plenty of joy from employing players like Oleksandr Zinchenko and others in a fluid inverted fullback role. By restricting positional fluidity, you're limiting the ability of players to swarm their opponents in key areas.
When players in Amorim's team have changed position, it’s often been out of panicked necessity rather than tactical tweaking (for example, Harry Maguire playing as a makeshift striker in the Europa League as United tried desperately to get a decisive goal in the knockout cup competition).
United's players have often failed to cause serious problems for their opponents, because positionally they are too predictable and fail to create significant gaps to exploit in the opposition lines.
A lack of positional fluidity creates other problems; when a team chooses to employ a man-marking system against Amorim’s United (meaning they closely mark each individual player rather than using the zonal marking strategies favoured by most teams), they are able to limit their ability to progress the ball and create chances very effectively.
We saw this in the Carabao Cup against Grimsby Town earlier in the 2025/26 season. The Red Devils suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of their League Two opponents, losing in a penalty shootout after a 2-2 draw in which the home side managed to effectively mark each player and significantly restrict their attacking output.
Predictability is another key issue. Amorim's pre-planned passing routines may have been effective at Sporting — allowing technical midfielders like Pedro Goncalves and Morten Hjulmand to combine neatly with prolific striker Viktor Gyokeres — but against stauncher defensive units in the Premier League, it's made his teams very predictable at times.
The fact that trained passing patterns are preferred to individual creative expression means that United have frequently found it difficult to break opponents down when they’re chasing a game.
Given that these passing patterns have often been used down the flanks, as United try to capitalise on their three-at-the-back system, opposition teams can negate the team's impact by focusing their press out wide and matching Amorim’s side up in these areas.
If his team can't break down opponents on the wing, they struggle to do the job, because their 5-2-3 shape means they are super light in midfield.
Many central midfielders have struggled to perform in this double pivot, including some very talented ones. Kobbie Mainoo, Casemiro, and Manuel Ugarte have all found it difficult to adjust to Amorim's methods and hold down a place in the team, despite evidently having plenty of quality.
Perhaps the biggest problem of all with Amorim's tactics is the huge demands it places on the two central midfielders, who need to cover a massive amount of ground and are often outnumbered in the middle and pressed intensely on the ball with limited passing options.
While the highly specified 3-4-3 system Amorim favours may work in Portugal, in the cut and thrust of the Premier League, he's found it difficult to replicate that success.
The Portuguese coach recently told Sky Sports: "The problem is not the system, the problem is the results. The problem is that if you don't win, people will find excuses. We will change the way we play, we will have more rotation in the way we play, the system, all these things, but it will take time." The issue is, Amorim may not have much time left to make it work at Old Trafford.
Want to find out more about how Portuguese coaches have impacted the modern European game? Check out our guide to tactical periodization, an influential concept originally born in Portugal.
Author: Fred Garratt-Stanley
Lead Content Writer
Fred Garratt-Stanley is an experienced football writer and journalist, specialising in industry insights, tactical analysis, and the culture of the game. He has contributed to publications such as NME, GQ, The Quietus, and Resident Advisor. As Lead Content Writer at Jobs In Football, he focuses on providing reliable, research-driven articles to help people navigate careers in the football industry.
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