Michael Owen says it’s “embarrassing” to blame all of Manchester United’s struggles on Ruben Amorim’s three-at-the-back system.
Man Utd have only accumulated 37 points from Amorim’s 34 Premier League matches in charge.
There was speculation that a bad result against Sunderland in the Red Devils’ last match would get Amorim sacked, but the head coach led his side to a 2-0 win at Old Trafford.
A crucial home victory and a first clean sheet of the season are enough to relieve some pressure on the Portuguese during the international break, but Man Utd’s performances this season have been extremely disappointing.
They are currently tenth in the Premier League with three wins, one draw, and three defeats from their opening seven games, with the club’s stuttering start to 2025/26 being attributed to Amorim’s tactical stubbornness.
Amorim has stuck rigidly to his favoured 3-4-2-1 formation, and club legends Gary Neville and Wayne Rooney are among those to criticise the Red Devils boss for showing a lack of adaptability, or a lack of desire to adapt.
Former Man Utd striker Owen thinks blaming the club’s poor form isn’t solely down to Amorim’s 3-4-2-1 philosophy, and has actually defended the 40-year-old head coach.
“They have changed the manager numerous times since Fergie left,” Owen said.
“Then they blamed the players; spent billions on players and got some of the best players in the world, only for the club to be seen as a bit of a graveyard for players in the last decade.
“Next it was the people buying the players, so everyone wanted rid of them. Then it was the board, so the board was shuffled around when Sir Jim Ratcliffe got involved.
“Then it’s the fault of the facilities so they wanted to revamp the training ground and put plans in for a new stadium.
“Then it’s the staff, so half the backroom staff, physios, doctors, canteen lady, the whole thing, wiped clean and a new start there.
“The latest one is it’s because they’re playing a back-three. If I’m not wrong, I watched Erik Ten Hag about a year ago playing a back-four, and it was some of the most awful football I’ve ever seen from a Manchester United team.
“Some great teams over the years have played with a back-three. I’m not saying that’s my favourite formation at all, and I’m not saying that Amorim is right to be steadfast in his beliefs in that formation. But I certainly don’t think all of United’s problems now are because they play with the back-three.
“It’s embarrassing if you’re going to say the main reason for the downturn is because they play a back-three. I mean, it really isn’t. They could go back to a back-four and play as bad as they did under Ten Hag, then the screams would be equally as loud.”
Amorim has voiced his concerns that negative comments from pundits about his system might be influencing his players, and Owen thinks that is possible.
“I could totally buy that,” he said. “Players aren’t sheltered away from everything.
“They’re driving cars to training, putting the radio on. They sit at home in the lounge with the TV on. They read social media. They can do all these things. If you’re interested in football, you can’t get away from what people are thinking and saying about it.
“Whether footballers should be swayed by those comments or impacted by them, that’s a different argument. But I’ve got no doubt that people will watch and will listen to people they probably respected and thought were great players growing up. They’ll listen to those opinions.
“If they’re saying certain things, then it might enter their head, and they could perhaps wonder if the manager is doing the right thing. They might have their own ideas, but that’s not a new phenomenon.
“That will never change. It never has changed, but I do think it is a relevant point to make by Amorim.”