Ruben Amorim said he opted for a surprise 4-2-3-1 because it offered the clearest route to unsettling Newcastle United, and the move produced a 1-0 victory. Patrick Dorgu, deployed on the right of the attack in the absence of the injured Bruno Fernandes, supplied a superb volley midway through the first half to settle the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we spent a lot of time with each other, had low moments … that can sometimes bring good things to the group, experienced players helped the kids,\u201d Amorim reflected after the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in the first half we showed the only way to create more danger was with a back four, with a lot of guys inside, even to keep the ball. I remember from the game last year, we lost one vs. one outside so we just tried to imagine the game of the players to feel comfortable.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou put Dorgu in a position that is more in front where the responsibility is not the same, he has more freedom to lose the ball and I think it helped Patrick play better. [Manuel] Ugarte also had a very good day.\u201d<\/p>\n
United were comfortable in the opening 45 minutes in the 4-2-3-1 shape, but the game shifted after the interval. On the hour mark Amorim withdrew Casemiro and reverted to a three-man back line for the second half. Casemiro expressed visible surprise, repeatedly asking Amorim whether a mistake had been made when the official raised his number. The manager confirmed the change was deliberate and later spoke of the factors behind his decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that moment I did not want to take [Matheus] Cunha [off] because he\u2019s the only guy who can allow us to breathe and I put him in a No. 10,\u201d Amorim explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cJack [Fletcher] was fresh to continue, Manu [Ugarte] was fresher than Casemiro, we took a chance because they were making a lot of corner runs and I feel he was going to struggle in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newcastle pushed in the closing stages but missed chances, and United held on. Fans must now wait to see whether Amorim persists with the 4-2-3-1 or returns to the 3-4-2-1 shape. The Red Devils resume on Dec. 30 when they host Wolverhampton Wanderers at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amorim chose a 4-2-3-1; Dorgu’s volley won 1-0 as United switched back to three after halftime. Dec.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,969],"tags":[1021,342,939],"class_list":["post-5407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-premier-league","tag-amorim","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-casemiro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}