Regular readers of these hallowed pages will know that our push for Premier League managerial sackings is generally limited to five, maybe six, reasons why they should be shown the door.<\/p>\n
But This Is Manchester United Football Club We\u2019re Talking About.<\/p>\n
And still \u2013 at time of writing \u2013 Ruben Amorim\u2019s Manchester United Football Club We\u2019re Talking About. So we\u2019ve come up with 20.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The formation<\/p>\n
We would be completely bored of it by now if we didn\u2019t actually quite look forward to witnessing the level of exasperation shown by Amorim when asked by\u00a0a reporter in each and every press conference or post-defeat interview whether he might consider changing his formation.<\/p>\n
He maintains, almost entirely on the basis of success at one other football club, that it\u2019s not the system that\u2019s the problem, and he\u2019s not for moving.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t quite know why we\u2019ve reached a point in professional football where a manager who can\u2019t, or at least won\u2019t, adapt is held up as some sort of misunderstood genius, but Amorim has been given a helluva lot of rope because of his stubbornness.<\/p>\n
The \u2018it worked at Sporting\u2019 argument very simply falls down on the basis of Manchester United not being Sporting, and we do wonder whether Amorim now regrets his early insistence that he would stick with 3-4-3 no matter what.<\/p>\n
While he understandably sees a move away from his principles as a respect-dwindling admission of defeat, surely the very real, actual defeats are far more damaging to his reputation.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The philosophy<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019re as culpable as anyone for lumping formation and philosophy together. They go hand in hand \u2013 we get it. But it\u2019s also possible for a system to not be working for a team while the wider ethos is apparent. That\u2019s not the case here.<\/p>\n Without saying \u2018pressing\u2019 or \u2018transition\u2019 because literally every f***er with a few magnets on a tactics board would pick those two facets of the game as key to their philosophy, can anyone tell us what Amorim\u2019s core Manchester United principles are? You said \u2018overloads\u2019, didn\u2019t you? Get out.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 34 points from 33 games<\/p>\n Only 11 Premier League managers have had a worse record after 33 games<\/a><\/strong>. Frank Lampard had the same tally at Everton.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Resignation threats<\/p>\n Like a p*ssed up bloke down the pub going nose to nose with you looking for any excuse for a rumble, he\u2019s f***ing asking for it.<\/p>\n After being talked down from a ledge after a 3-1 defeat to Brighton in January,\u00a0when he told United bosses he was \u2018prepared to resign\u2019<\/a><\/strong>, reports continue to suggest Amorim may walk before he\u2019s pushed. And while that sounds very much like a \u00a312m compensation saving, we can see Gary Neville now with his headset on explaining why someone quitting Manchester United before they quit on him is \u201cthe lowest of the low for the football club\u201d.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Amorim next? Resignation reasons include transfer walkouts, Keane anger and no beachfront dwelling<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Lost the Europa League final<\/strong><\/p>\n Erik ten Hag kept his job because Manchester United won the FA Cup final. Sure, it was maybe the only time in the entirely of his second season at Old Trafford when performance and result came together, and it was absolute madness to hand him a new contract on the back of it, but it was a trophy, and one they claimed by beating very much the best team in England at the time in Manchester City.<\/p>\n Amorim didn\u2019t win a trophy and lost to the 17th best team in England, managed by a guy whose only three victories in his last 15 games in all competitions for Tottenham and now Nottingham Forest came in that final and the two semi-finals against Bodo\/Glimt.<\/p>\n READ MORE: 16 Conclusions on Spurs winning the Europa League: Amorim sack, Postecoglou vindication, terrible Manchester United<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Kobbie Mainoo<\/p>\n Mainoo\u2019s teammates are \u2018perplexed\u2019 at him being sidelined by Amorim, Gary Lineker is \u201creally worried\u201d<\/a><\/strong> about him being \u201cdismissed\u201d and \u201cbaffled\u201d by him not starting, and so too is Owen Hargreaves, who quite rightly said he was United\u2019s \u201cbest player by a country mile\u201d<\/a><\/strong> having come off the bench in the defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad.<\/p>\n Amorim believes he\u2019s \u201chelping\u201d Mainoo<\/a><\/strong>, but it\u2019s hard to see how and the academy graduate must be similarly confused as to why he\u2019s not playing in a team performing so poorly. Just how bad do they have to be for him to be given a fair chance?<\/p>\n He\u2019s been told by Amorim that it\u2019s either him or Bruno Fernandes, but we refuse to accept that Mainoo \u2013 ill-suited or not \u2013 would fail to do a better job alongside the Manchester United captain than competition winner Manuel Ugarte, and it\u2019s not as though Fernandes himself has been in undroppable form.<\/p>\n Not only are United terrible, but there\u2019s no place in the team for someone deemed by many to be the future of the club. It\u2019s not a good look.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Public condemnation<\/strong><\/p>\n It was supposedly an obsession with Amorim\u2019s charisma which played no small part in Ratcliffe and INEOS plumping for him as their manager, and he would probably already be out of the job if it wasn\u2019t for that charm. It makes him a very difficult man to dislike and there\u2019s no doubting his ability to hold the room.<\/p>\n But if anything, he\u2019s honest to a fault, and we can\u2019t imagine Ratcliffe and the INEOS bosses are too enamoured with him besmirching the great name of Manchester United.<\/p>\n Heralding this as \u201cthe worst team in Manchester United history\u201d<\/a><\/strong> can\u2019t be good for the share price.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Centre-back subs<\/p>\n \u201cHow are you supposed to adapt to a situation when you\u2019re changing it constantly?!\u201d a genuinely irritated Micah Richards asked on Match of the Day, accompanied by a graphic showing the scattergun changes Amorim made in an attempt to rescue a point against Brentford<\/a><\/strong>, which ended with Mason Mount at left wing-back in one of the more laughable examples of his 3-4-3 obstinacy.<\/p>\n We can just about give him a pass for a bit of substitution chaos to turn a game on its head, but what we can\u2019t fathom is his insistence on changing at least one of his centre-backs in every single game.<\/p>\n He\u2019s made ten unenforced centre-back substitutions this season. Win, lose or draw, it doesn\u2019t matter. Leny Yoro came on for Maguire on Saturday, started on the left side, forcing Matthijs de Ligt into the middle, then moved to the right when Mount came on for Luke Shaw, with Diogo Dalot moving into the back three.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a fair chance they didn\u2019t know where they were supposed to be playing come the end of the game, and there\u2019s no way the players walked off that pitch believing they\u2019re in the hands of a measured tactician.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Premier League prize money<\/strong><\/p>\n Reports suggest sacking Amorim will cost the club \u00a312m. For the 2024\/25 season, the difference in prize money was around\u00a0\u00a32.7m per position, meaning any new manager would need to make a five-place improvement on whatever Amorim might achieve this season for his sacking to make fiscal sense. Yer da could do that.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Premier League prize money table revealed with Chelsea taking top spot after November picks<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Rasmus Hojlund<\/p>\n It really is amazing just what a tonic not being at Manchester United is. After finding the net on debut for Napoli, Hojlund scored two goals in the Serie A side\u2019s 2-1 win over Sporting in the Champions League on Wednesday.<\/p>\n The first saw him burst through two defenders and latch on to a through ball from Kevin De Bruyne before sliding the ball between the goalkeeper\u2019s legs; the second saw him put his head where it hurts to beat the \u2018keeper to a De Bruyne cross.<\/p>\n If you wanted a brace to showcase a Proper Striker<\/a><\/strong> it was just about perfect and the first goal in particular is the sort of run and finish many Manchester United fans will have been expecting from Hojlund when Amorim arrived at the club. He\u2019s got a not dissimilar profile to Viktor Gyokeres, who banged goals in for fun under Amorim in Portugal.<\/p>\n Instead what they got was a clearly talented striker brought to Manchester United ruined by a manager who \u2013 as Benjamin Sesko is now also evidence for \u2013 doesn\u2019t know how to get the ball to them.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOut-schooled\u201d by a novice<\/strong><\/p>\n In Keith Andrews\u2019 eighth game as a football manager he \u201cout-schooled\u201d Amorim<\/a><\/strong>. His tactics weren\u2019t revolutionary \u2013 they didn\u2019t need to be.<\/p>\n Brentford recycled passes between their defenders while every now and again playing the ball into midfield to draw United on to them. When the United midfielders stepped out to press, Jordan Henderson or someone else played a long ball up to Igor Thiago, who then had what turned out to be the very simple task of bullying one, two or all three centre-backs to win free-kicks, create chances and score goals with the Red Devils midfield nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n As Alan Shearer said, Amorim is making life \u201ceasy\u201d for Andrews and every other manager he comes up against as they know exactly how United are going to play.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Oliver Glasner\u2026 or (nearly) anyone else<\/p>\n Glasner is currently the bookies favourite to replace Amorim<\/a><\/strong> and would apparently take the job \u201cin a heartbeat\u201d. More fool him.<\/p>\n The Austrian makes a lot of sense, not least because of the wonderful progress he\u2019s made at Palace, first without Michael Olise and now without Eberechi Eze, but also because he\u2019s showing that 3-4-3 can work in the Premier League and his contract expires at the end of the season.<\/p>\n Gareth Southgate is second favourite and we can see why he\u2019s Sir Jim Ratcliffe\u2019s pick<\/a><\/strong>, but as Jamie Carragher said,\u00a0\u201cthe problem for Ruben Amorim is that every other Premier League manager would look at it and say, \u2018I could do a better job than that.’\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Manchester United DNA<\/p>\n Haven\u2019t heard this nonsense in a while, have we? And we wonder whether that\u2019s because the football Amorim has United playing is now so far removed from the fabled Manchester United DNA\u00a0that the genetics of the football club is no longer even considered as part of the \u2018what\u2019s wrong with United\u2019 rhetoric.<\/p>\n Ole back at the wheel<\/a><\/strong>, anyone?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Grimsby Town<\/p>\n \u201cSomething has to change and you cannot change 22 players,\u201d Amorim said after the historic defeat to League Two Grimsby, in another hint at his possible resignation, having claimed\u00a0\u201cthe players spoke really loud\u201d through their performance.<\/p>\n But the players might argue, as we and a raft of other publications and pundits did, that Amorim rocking from side to side on the bench as his team lost the penalty shootout was a pretty deafening declaration of a more overarching defeat. It looked like the point of no return, and still does.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Amorim and Man Utd reach sack-worthy new nadir as Sesko shrinks in shocking Grimsby defeat<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The other nadirs<\/p>\n There\u2019s always a rock under the one at the bottom. And while there\u2019s undoubtedly some recency bias involved, with the latest defeat often declared a new nadir to sell a sack story or just because it\u2019s fun to write and read about last week\u2019s \u201cworst Manchester United team in history\u201d being somehow better than this week\u2019s, there may also be a cumulative effect which automatically makes the most recent defeat the new nadir because of the sustained period of sh*te.<\/p>\n Anyway, there have been plenty. Grimsby, Brentford, a 2-0 home defeat to Graham Potter\u2019s West Ham, Brentford again, Wolves on Boxing Day.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n BLE analysis<\/p>\n Amorim is an absolute gift when it comes to presenting us with images of his and Manchester United\u2019s slow death. Aside from smiling pictures in press conferences or while walking into the stadium before the latest crushing blow, there are three stock Amorim photos available for selection: shouty, gesticulating Amorim; crouched down, head-in-hands Amorim; looking down, deep-in-thought Amorim.<\/p>\n We love, love, love that he was asked about that last one after the Brentford defeat, dismissing it as \u201cnothing\u201d and \u201csomething I\u2019ve always done\u201d, but we will always choose to side with the body language experts drafted in to give their hot takes.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can see him crouched down in a fetal position, almost like what a baby does,\u201d said the Mirror\u2019s crack BLE. \u201cImagine if someone was about to get beaten up, that\u2019s the first stance they adopt. They go on the ground and put themselves in a fetal position.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Marcus Rashford<\/p>\n You\u2019ve got to wonder if, while watching Rashford score a brilliant brace for Barcelona against Newcastle<\/a><\/strong> in the Champions League, Ratcliffe and the INEOS bosses considered the possibility that they may have backed the wrong horse.<\/p>\n Rashford would very likely still be a Manchester United player if Amorim wasn\u2019t the manager, and is currently performing at a higher level than any of the forwards currently in the Red Devils squad, as he did at Aston Villa last season.<\/p>\n After all of that contrived nonsense in the media<\/a><\/strong> about Barcelona sending him back to Old Trafford after a couple of games, he\u2019s now asserted himself as a starter in one of the best teams in Europe, assisting a goal in each of his last four La Liga games and against PSG in the Champions League on Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Tallying mistakes<\/p>\n \u201cI think he\u2019s still in a job, because I think the powers that be on Manchester United have made that many mistakes so far and decisions that they\u2019ve made on and off the pitch that they almost don\u2019t want to admit right now, that they\u2019ve made another,\u201d Jamie Carragher said on Monday Night Football.<\/p>\n Sounds about right, but we put it to Ratcliffe and the Manchester United powers that be that by not admitting to the mistake of hiring Amorim they\u2019re currently making another in not sacking him.<\/p>\n There have been a helluva lot of mistakes though\u2026\u00a0Ruben Amorim is the worst of 19 Sir Jim Ratcliffe mistakes at Manchester United<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Lost the dressing room<\/p>\n It was reported last month<\/a><\/strong> that Amorim was \u2018losing the confidence of the dressing room\u2019 as players\u00a0\u2018questioned his refusal to pivot mid-match, with his tactics struggling against the Premier League\u2019s relentless pace\u2019, and we\u2019re not convinced that an Enzo Maresca and Robert Sanchez-inspired victory over Chelsea will have outweighed a Brentford defeat in the dressing room confidence stakes since.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Embarrassment<\/p>\n For Amorim, Ratcliffe, the players, the fans, the cabal of Manchester United pundits, it is really just quite embarrassing just how bad at football they are. And yes, it is also quite embarrassing to spend \u00a3200m on new players for a manager only to sack him a couple of months later, but what\u2019s the alternative? Wade through this sh*te until January and spend another wedge of cash on the next raft of ill-advised souls doomed to fail at Old Trafford?<\/p>\n We understand that Amorim isn\u2019t solely to blame \u2013 there are at least five other culprits<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 but there really is currently no-one more to blame for this mess. He has been, and will continue to be, a \u201cdisaster\u201d<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regular readers of these hallowed pages will know that our push for Premier League managerial sackings is generally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,1322,13,14,793,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,20,5,5005,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-101011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-f365-features","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-front-page","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-manchester-united","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-ruben-amorim","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}