“Absolutely,” the Dutchman agrees, “Coming into the last 10-15 minutes of the game, I was thinking to myself, for anything at all to happen, someone needs to do something really stupid or somebody will do something unbelievably brilliant to open up that game. And both things happened,” the former Man United coach tells Tribalfootball in a reaction to the game which didn’t exactly set Manchester on fire for 88 minutes.
“Overall, Man City weren't great, and Man United did okay but weren't great either. Man City are not in a good spell, anyway, and I thought United kept going sideways. There was no penetration, no threat and City were happy with that. City probably thought, “if we can see this game out, then it's great. Then the ball over the top from Martinez led to that fantastic goal which was basically the highlight of the game,” says Meulensteen before pointing out the fickleness of football.
“If City had won that game 1-0, then I think different questions would have been asked to Amorim. Now, United win the game, it’s all fantastic, it builds confidence and creates a good feeling. He made the right call. If he had lost the game, people would have questioned for instance the decision to leave out Rashford and Garnacho. That’s the fine line of football.
“I don't think he gambled with the decision to leave out those two because if you listen to him, I think he thought it through really well. You notice very clearly that he is in the process of building something and he evaluates everything he does. He doesn't really care whether it was Man City and a Derby.
“He looks at where my team is now; where do I want it to be after this game, where do I want it to be over the next five-10 games, where do I want it to be at the end of the season. That's how he thinks and everything that he believes he needs to do in that process, he will do, irrespective of what opponent he's got in front of him.”
The Portuguese boss has altered his line-up a lot in his first few weeks at Manchester United and René Meulensteen believes there’s method in the madness.
“He wants to maximize as quick as he can. He insists on playing 3-4-3 and wants to look at which players are best suited to play in that system. That's why he's given everybody an opportunity, I think. I also think you will start to see a little bit more consistency in terms of certain positions and lesser rotations,” Meulensteen explains of the methodology from Amorim, who told BBC after the game United deserved the win. A statement Meulensteen is a little hesitant to agree with.
“It's a little over the top to say ‘we deserve to win’ because over the full 90 minutes, if you take away those two goals, you’d have absolutely nothing to talk about. Winning and losing in football can basically distort the whole picture and people feed off these results and these emotions. But he’s doing the right thing.
“For Amorim it’s been the perfect week. They win after falling behind against Plzen, then they go to the derby and win as well on the back of a big decision by leaving Garnacho and Rashford out. He creates a certain status for himself of ‘I'm not afraid to make big decisions’.”
Pep Guardiola should learn from Sir Alex
His counterpart in the City dugout once again cut a frustrated figure, stating after the game “I'm not good enough”, but of course he’s still good enough, Meulensteen says.
“It's definitely a new situation for him because everywhere he’s been, he’s always been the dominant force. He's never had a spell like this but the reason why he says that is to protect the team. He wants all the focus on him. But if you look at Sir Alex Ferguson, for instance, he brought in different assistants to avoid going stale. He was still the most important voice but not the main voice through the week which creates a different kind of energy.
“Pep still does everything himself and when you've won so much, subconsciously you start taking performances and results for granted. Then, when you hit a spell where it goes down, and you come on that slippery slope, you don't know what's happening and it's almost like a snowball effect.
“Sometimes you have to think a little bit outside the box because they've heard his tactics a million times before. City need to press the reset button, but of course he's good enough, Pep's one of the best managers of all time and he will find a solution.”
- René Meulensteen was talking to Tribalfootball on behalf of Instant Casino