Man Utd should copy Chelsea! Ruben Amorim would be wise to unleash a Europa League 'B' team in a bid to revitalise Antony & Mason Mount

Amorim was well versed in squad rotation at Sporting CP, when he was used to playing between 52 and 54 matches per season, and he has embraced the same attitude to team selection at United. In his second game in charge against Bodo/Glimt he made six changes from his debut at Ipswich Town and he made another six for the next game against Everton, when there was just a 64-hour gap between games.

It was the same for the trip to Arsenal, although he only changed four players for the game against Forest. Only three players have been resistant to the rotation and have started every game: Matthijs de Ligt, Fernandes and Andre Onana. It is a big change from Ten Hag, who named an identical starting line-up for his first two games of the campaign and made only four changes in the opening four.

For the Dutchman, three changes was a large number and one gets the impression that he would have rotated even less had he not had to contend with so many injuries. Indeed, Ten Hag was so reticent about rotation that during his first season he named an unchanged line-up against Real Betis four days after his side had been trounced 7-0 by Liverpool.

His propensity to keep a fixed starting XI in that debut campaign might have helped him win the Carabao Cup, reach the FA Cup final and finish third in the Premier League, but after a 64-game season in which many of his squad also played in the winter World Cup in Qatar, his players looked utterly drained. The load on the players can go some way to explaining why they suffered so many injuries the following campaign.

Amorim's approach in that sense is refreshing. And it makes further sense given that many of his players did not have a proper pre-season campaign due to being involved in the European Championship and Copa America.

As former United defender John O'Shea explained to GOAL: “There's got to be more robustness built into the players. It’s hard because when these international players are going away to tournaments they’re not getting the chance to recover. If you have a four-to-six week window of proper training that base will serve you for the rest of the season but if you miss out on that you have to have that luck on the way to avoid little injuries."

There is another motivation behind Amorim's squad rotation. He needs to make every training session count as he looks to instil his methods into his new charges, and players who have played the day before cannot participate fully in a session the following day. As he explained in his first press conference: "It's so much harder to come to the team in the middle of the season because you have to get to know the players during the games, you are talking about no national team periods to work with the players, it's just games. It's really hard but we'll try to find ways to cope with that."

And one way to cope is to look at what Chelsea have been doing. The Blues were on track to compete in the Europa League but United's shock win over Manchester City in the FA Cup final relegated them to the Europa Conference League. And manager Enzo Maresca has used the fact that his side are overwhelmingly the strongest in the competition to his advantage by fielding almost an entirely different team in Europe than in the Premier League games.

The Italian even took the bold decision to exclude talisman Cole Palmer from the squad for the group stage along with Wesley Fofana and Romeo Lavia. The policy has worked wonders in both competitions: Chelsea have won all four of their European games with ease and they have won eight of their last 12 Premier League matches to emerge as the strongest title rival to Liverpool, who are the only team to have beaten the Blues, along with champions City.

Maresca has also been flexible between competitions, making seven changes for the recent Premier League game at Southampton and still seeing his team win 5-1. He made another seven changes for the 4-3 win at Tottenham, restoring his line-up to the same 11 players that had beaten Aston Villa the week before.

"Pick an XI that you think are the best. Almost give that XI the faith and trust," explained Neville. "Maresca's doing it now at Chelsea - he's playing an XI on a Sunday or a Saturday and then he's playing a different XI in midweek. He's sending some messages to the players that there's stability here and this is what we're going to do.”

Maresca has also found consistency with his B team, and he has managed to give a new lease of life to players who would otherwise miss out. Christopher Nkunku has scored seven goals in six Conference League games (including the two-legged qualifier against Servette) while he has only started twice in the Premier League, although he is regularly brought off the bench.

Mykhailo Mudryk is also getting the game time he is starved of in the league and has scored three times in four matches. Benoit Badiashile, meanwhile, has used the Conference League games to map out a path into the Premier League team, playing 90 minutes in two of the last three fixtures, plus half an hour against Aston Villa. Of course, Chelsea's success in effectively building two capable and competitive groups of players has only been made possible by the £1 billion ($1.2bn) spent on 39 signings since the Todd Boehly-led takeover in 2022.

United have spent around £600m ($763m) in that time but their squad is not nearly as competitive. But that's the point. Giving players the assurance they will play certain matches is the best chance of revitalising some of those who have previously been written off.

Antony did well in the Europa League in his debut season and getting a run of games in the competition again could lift his confidence. The same is true of Mason Mount, a player who Amorim seems to like and who Ten Hag greatly admired but could barely use due to his injury problems. Mount is available again but is lacking sharpness and was ineffective off the bench against Forest.

Joshua Zirkzee could get a regular run of games to further settle into the squad after a shaky start. Then there is Altay Bayindir, the Turkish goalkeeper who has made just three appearances since joining in 2023.

United could also use having a 'B' team as an opportunity to blood the best youngsters emerging from their superb youth system, such as left-back Harry Amass, midfielder Toby Collyer and forward Ethan Wheatley, who made his first-team debut last season.

United will need all the players available in this gruelling run of fixtures, which sees them play nine games in December and potentially nine again (if they progress in the Carabao Cup) in January. Amorim could debut his 'B' team against Viktoria Plzen in the Europa League on Thursday and field the same XI a week later in the Carabao Cup quarter-final against Tottenham while keeping his best players fresh for the most important game of that week, Sunday's derby at Manchester City.

The 'B' team could be called upon again at relegation-threatened Wolves on Boxing Day. After hosting Newcastle on December 30 there are week-long gaps in the schedule, when the 'A' team will have time to recover for the trips to Liverpool and Arsenal. The 'B' team could then be leaned upon again for the final Europa League games against Rangers and FCSB, leaving the first team as sharp as possible as they bid to scale their way back up the Premier League table and push for Champions League qualification.

As Louis van Gaal and Ten Hag can attest, trophy wins only get you so far and while any silverware will be a bonus, Amorim will be judged for where he can take United in the league. He needs his best men available for that pursuit, and that's why he must look to Maresca and Ferguson and take rotation to a whole new level.