{"id":268303,"date":"2026-01-05T11:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T11:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/268303\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T11:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T11:55:07","slug":"ruben-amorim-sacked-by-manchester-united-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/268303\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruben Amorim sacked by Manchester United \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ruben Amorim<\/a> has been sacked by Manchester United<\/a> after 14 months as their head coach. The Portuguese departs after a power struggle with the hierarchy over transfer policy, with Amorim demanding his colleagues in the recruitment department \u201cdo their job\u201d after Sunday\u2019s draw at Leeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cRuben Amorim has departed his role as head coach of Manchester United,\u201d announced the club in a statement on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cRuben was appointed in November 2024 and led the team to a Uefa Europa League Final in Bilbao in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Manchester United sitting sixth in the Premier League, the club\u2019s leadership has reluctantly made the decision that it is the right time to make a change. This will give the team the best opportunity of the highest possible Premier League finish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe club would like to thank Ruben for his contribution to the club and wishes him well for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amorim believed United were prepared to back him in the January window should a major signing become available but then said last Friday: \u201cWe have no conversation to have any change in the squad.\u201d <\/p>\n

His relationship with the director of football, Jason Wilcox, has become strained and Amorim made clear his frustration after the Leeds game, when he also said he would stay, at the longest, until his contract ends in 18 months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came here to be the manager of Manchester United \u2013 not to be the coach of Manchester United,\u201d Amorim said, even though his title was, in a first for the club, head coach rather than manager. \u201cThat is clear. I know my name is not [Thomas] Tuchel, [Jos\u00e9] Mourinho or [Antonio] Conte but I\u2019m the manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be like this for 18 months or until the board decide to change. I\u2019m not going to quit, I will do my job until another guy is coming here to replace me.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ken Early: Is Ruben Amorim a coach or a manager? Soon it won\u2019t make much differenceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Amorim is believed to have been informed of the January transfer policy on the authority of Wilcox, who reports to Omar Berrada, the chief executive. United were seemingly reluctant to sanction the signings Amorim wanted because the players he had targeted for his preferred 3-4-3 may not suit the next head coach and the hierarchy lost confidence that he was the right long-term solution.<\/p>\n

Amorim indicated that pundits\u2019 opinions had started to hold more sway than his own within the club when he said after the Leeds match: \u201cIf people cannot handle the Gary Nevilles and the criticisms of everything, we need to change the club.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amorim was appointed on November 1st, 2024 on a contract to June 2027, with a club option of an additional year. He oversaw United\u2019s lowest Premier League finish \u2013 15th, with 42 points \u2013 last season and lost the Europa League final. A net spend last summer of \u00a3165 million (\u20ac190 million), including the signings of Benjamin Sesko, Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha, has failed to spark a sustained upturn.<\/p>\n

United endured a difficult start to this season and were knocked out of the Carabao Cup by the League Two club Grimsby. But United\u2019s co-owner Jim Ratcliffe backed his head coach in October, saying he should be judged after three years in charge. A relative upturn in results has move them up to sixth in the table \u2013 albeit only four points above 14th-placed Crystal Palace, and he won only 15 of his 46 league games.<\/p>\n

Until recently Amorim was wedded to his tactics, built around the back three with which he brought success to Sporting in his previous job, saying \u201cnot even the pope\u201d could make him deviate, but his approach has been widely questioned throughout his tenure. <\/p>\n

The club are searching for their seventh full-time manager or head coach since Alex Ferguson departed in 2013 after 26\u00bd years in charge. Darren Fletcher will take charge against Burnley on Wednesday. \u2013 Guardian and staff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ruben Amorim has been sacked by Manchester United after 14 months as their head coach. The Portuguese departs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,20,795,5005,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-268303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-manchester-united","12":"tag-premier-league","13":"tag-ruben-amorim","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115842365731019631","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268303","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=268303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}