Ruben Amorim retains the full backing of the Manchester United hierarchy, despite the club’s worst start to a season in 33 years.
Sunday’s limp 3-0 defeat to Manchester City was Amorim’s 16th loss since taking charge at Old Trafford 10 months ago, ensuring the under-fire Portuguese has the worst record of any United manager post the Second World War.
He is, however, not under pressure of being the latest head coach to be sacked having failed to restore United to anything like their former grandeur.
The i Paper has been told by several sources that there is a feeling that while results have remained disappointing, there has been an improvement in performances and results remain poor only by “fine margins”.
A lack of goals was fundamental to their downfall in last season’s year from hell.
Defeat at Manchester City was the team’s third this season (Photo: Getty)
While they have only mustered one goal from open play from their opening four league matches, United have managed 52 shots at goal, 10 more than any other Premier League side.
They are offering a threat in attack, one that was so often conspicuous by its absence last term.
United missed some glaring openings at the Etihad, albeit when chasing the game, and found new City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma in fine form.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe and co-owners Ineos have invested heavily in Amorim’s project and feel the summer transfer window was a success.
Given time to bed in, sources said, there is a feeling the new arrivals will help oversee a transformation in fortunes.
Chief executive Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox are fans of the way Amorim and his team of coaches work, with the environment at the club’s impressive new training centre said to be a very harmonious one.
Amorim’s insistence that his system and approach to football will work has drawn plenty of criticism in the aftermath of the derby defeat, with the head coach again doubling down on his philosophy after the match.
Part of the reason Amorim was hired in the first place was how he had some form of tangible footballing identity – something Ineos made one of their key objectives to implement, feeling the lack of one among previous coaches contributed to the years of failure in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era.
As captain Bruno Fernandes touched upon in his post-match interview at the Etihad, player mistakes were the root cause of their derby woes, with the skipper calling for his players to be braver to ensure the system does work.
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Amorim will not change his ways, that much we know.
But a few tweaks here and there – abandoning attempts to deploy Fernandes in a deep-lying midfield role being one – could see an upturn in results, some figures at the club believe.
At this stage, the writing appears to be on the wall for yet another United boss, with a tough challenge to come against Chelsea at the weekend.
Amorim will at least get that match to prove his doubters wrong. Nonetheless, something, however small, has to give.