Ruben Amorim praised Man Utd coach for innovative penalty approach, no one noticed it

Ruben Amorim praised his assistant coach Carlos Fernandes for Manchester United’s hidden approach during the penalty shootout against Arsenal.

Manchester United won against all odds at the Emirates Stadium against Arsenal despite having just 10 men for a large period of the game.

Ruben Amorim’s side were resilient throughout the 120 minutes and did all they could to reach the penalty shootout.

United scored all five of their spot kicks while Altay Bayindir’s save against Kai Havertz proved the difference and led to United progressing to the fourth-round of the FA Cup.

Amorim praised Fernandes for United’s penalty success

Bruno Fernandes, Amad, Leny Yoro, Lisandro Martínez and Joshua Zirkzee stepped up for United in the most pressured situation and they all delivered with confident finishes.

When asked about decision-making behind who would take the penalties, Amorim left all of the praise for his coaching team.

The Portuguese boss has previously explained that set-piece situations are led by his assistant, Carlos Fernandes, alongside others in the backroom staff.

“The set pieces is not my part, and today we were amazing in set pieces. So Carlos [Fernandes] was really good. Andreas [Georgson] was really good. Emanuel [Ferro] was really good,” explained the boss.

“And they chose the right players to score the penalty. So, it’s not my part, it was them. They did a very good job.”

United’s innovative penalty approach spotted

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but it seemed like the order of United’s penalty takers was even more strategic than it looked.

The takers (Fernandes, Amad, Yoro, Martínez, Zirkzee) included two left-footers and three right-footers and they were taken alternatively – Amad and Martínez as the two left-footers.

Of course, those were likely the five strongest takers and the players most confident ahead of the shootout, but it very well could have been a deliberate approach to not have same footed players take two in a row.

It keeps the goalkeeper on his toes, with no two penalties in a row being the same in terms of the run-up, making it more difficult to predict which way to go.

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Whatever the United coaching staff decided to do, it clearly worked and Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya could not get close to any of the penalties.

It would certainly be interesting to know if this was done on purpose from the United coaches, but they got the praise from Amorim at the end anyway.

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