Manchester United: Rio Ferdinand names five players who already don't 'fit' under Ruben Amorim

Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand admits he fears for five players who may not “fit” Ruben Amorim’s style of play.

The 39-year-old has quickly installed the 3-4-3 system upon which he built much of his success in Portuguese football since replacing Erik ten Hag at Old Trafford last month.

While Amorim was keen to stress United could not play exactly like his all-conquering Sporting side prior to his arrival in England, a similar formation has been used throughout his tenure thus far.

The United boss went unbeaten in his first three games in charge of the club but was dealt his first defeat following Wednesday’s 2-0 loss at Arsenal.

These are early stages of the Amorim era of course and losing away at an in-form Gunners side is hardly a shock. Still, it did in part underline the job facing the Portuguese as he looks to restore former glories.

Amorim has so far rotated the options available to him and United are understood to be facing the prospect of a reasonably quiet January transfer window having posted an operating loss of £6.9million for the first quarter of the 2024-25 financial year.

With that in mind, it will likely be a case of working with what he’s got but Ferdinand believes the likes of Marcus Rashford, Alejandro Garnacho, Rasmus Hojlund, Joshua Zirkzee and Antony could be facing reasonably uncertain futures in this system.

“I worry about whether the players that we have can fit into what Amorim wants,” he said on his Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast.

“You look at Garnacho and you look at Rashford. Can they fit into an inside forward position and is that really the position they are going to excel?

“Rasmus Hojlund. Is he going to be our [Viktor] Gyokeres, is he going to be the guy we can play through?

“Antony hasn’t shown that [he fits into the system] yet, Zirkzee as well. Where is he going to fit into all of this?”

United are back in action when they host Nottingham Forest on Saturday.