Manchester United is one of the biggest football clubs on the planet.
Despite the extended malaise at Old Trafford the behemoth remains. But there’s something different about the club compared to the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Juventus.
Many Manchester United supporters feel an umbilical cord attachment to the manager, pretty much any manager, whereas fans of those other three may have burned the stadium down in the situation United find themselves in.
Under Ruben Amorim, a distinct identity has been built. One of embracing Suffering™ and showing patience.
Managerial patience as a moral pursuit
Growing up with Alex Ferguson was, without embracing hyperbole, having a second father figure. He was a constant, for some he was *the* constant. That reliable figure in life that remains whilst everything else blows up around your ears.
Ferguson didn’t cure life’s ills, but his presence and the security of that provided something of a pillar. Yearning for that has become the foundation for managerial patience as a moral pursuit.
Ferguson’s own words about backing a manager are often wheeled out, although it feels a deeper issue. There’s a desire to replicate what was had, or as close to it as possible. It is difficult to let go of such feelings when they were ingrained as life was navigated.
All of that feeds into the next generation of Manchester United supporters who feel a need to replicate in order to be authentic.
Manager is king. Players are expendable.
Kobbie Mainoo, Rasmus Hojlund, Alejandro Garnacho
BUCHAREST, ROMANIA – 30 JANUARY 2025: Kobbie Mainoo, Rasmus Hojlund and Alejandro Garnacho celebrating a goal during the UEFA Europa League match between FCSB and Manchester United.
There’s currently an expectation for Manchester United footballers to be sanitised, at a club with a history of mavericks. Maturity is required before time and transgressions are noted, for future reference.
Having positively celebrated the errs of past players, there’s now a situation where for many a new bad-mentality target is needed on a regular basis.
It’s cathartic, and if it costs the club useful squad members then so be it. Sticking to values, whatever they are this year, is more important.
Because it can’t be that man, it can’t be the one in charge. Ferguson told everyone to back the manager. It’s the players. And so fans rumble along, mentally building the 2026 Bomb Squad.
No desire to embrace Suffering™? Pathetic.
Ruben Amorim
Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim during the UEFA Europa League Final 2025. Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United at Estadio de San Mames. May 21, 2025 in Bilbao, Spain.
There’s a reasonable likelihood Manchester United cannot be truly successful with Ruben Amorim’s system. Should the system ever work, and that’s an outside bet, then it’s telegraphed so much it’s bait for opposing managers.
And those opposing managers are pretty good. They are not chumps who are beneath our current ayatollah. The Premier League consistently has some of the best tactical minds in the game and they’re coming for you always.
Adaptability is crucial even if you’re battling for the title, which feels like a fever dream right now.
It would appear Amorim was anointed rather than interviewed. Otherwise it’s hard to believe Jason Wilcox and Omar Berrada didn’t – oh I don’t know – JUST ASK QUESTIONS TO ASCERTAIN IF HE’D CONTINUE WITH HIS SYSTEM EVEN IF THE TEAM WAS IN PROLONGED RELEGATION FORM.
Manchester United has been dragged down into a project which would, with all due respect, make Tottenham scream. The very idea of success has been presented as a somewhat dirty and basic desire.
You want Manchester United to consistently compete and win football matches? Pathetic. And undeserving. Ferguson told you to back the manager and yet here you are trying to dodge the Suffering™ draft. May as well be a Chelsea fan.
Gradual and enthusiastic shrinkage of Manchester United
“The title race is between two horses and a little horse that needs milk and needs to learn how to jump. Maybe next season we can race.”
Those were the words of Jose Mourinho in 2014. At the time he was Chelsea manager and his team had just beaten Manchester City at the Etihad. Chelsea came third that season, winning the title the following year.
To Chelsea’s little horse, Manchester United have been talked down into a conceptus, a horse embryo. Finishing 15th, with the pretence it’s to aid the next season, makes the club smaller. The gradual shrinkage of Manchester United.
A behemoth in sport is reduced to forfeiting a period for an idea – just a faint distant concept – of future success. Accepting slaps to the face as if the stings are invigorating, actually.
Like in Mortal Kombat, if you take a beating and your energy ebbs away that does not make it easier to launch a comeback. It makes it easier to kill you.
Suffering™ being an inbuilt part of the process and providing the foundations for a better future was always absurd. Building a true winning mentality is difficult, building a losing mentality is rather easier… you just… lose football matches.
Manchester United fans, however, backed that process. They cannot be faulted for standing behind their manager or hoping-beyond-hope that it’d work. For trying to do what they thought was correct and what growing up under Ferguson had taught them.
But it hasn’t worked. Indeed it’s been an unmitigated disaster in almost every aspect.
Ruben Amorim may only have one or two matches left to change that. If he doesn’t, then it’s obrigado por nada, adeus and on to the next. And if he doesn’t work then spin the wheel again without the guilt from a childhood shaped by Sir Alex.