There’s a surprising amount of sympathy for Ruben Amorim after his sacking by Man Utd as the board gets a kicking.
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Maresca for Amorim?
We heard about swap deals for players, but how about a manager swap to kick 2026 off?
Maresca is out of job and apparently interested in moving to Manchester. Sending Amorim the other way would solve everybody’s problems and the entertainment could continue…
András, Gunner, Sweden
Man Utd and ‘staggering levels of stupidity’
I was right in the middle of writing a letter about United when they go and sack the manager. So inconsiderate. My first thoughts on the sacking are “Why is my club run by f***ing idiots?”
You appoint a guy knowing it’s a project and might take years to get right. You toil through a year of shit football and embarrassing defeats. You back him to reshape the squad by kicking out the prima donnas. Then when the improvement comes and the team is starting to claw back some semblance of respectability, you sack him for complaining in public about transfers?!? Just staggering levels of stupidity from Berrada and Wilcox.
The letter I was writing explained that despite United being pretty shit they are still on course to meet preseason expectations and only one win behind the most optimistic of these predictions. No one had United making the top 4 this season and with good reason. The squad isn’t good enough.
We know the ‘breakdown in relations’ cited as the reason for sacking Amorim has come about mainly over disagreements on transfers, namely that no reinforcements are arriving this month. So the squad is still not going to be good enough to exceed expectations and now has to transition into a new temporary manager then possibly another mid season appointment. All while still paying Amorim his full wage to sit at home. It’s lunacy!
As usual with United the whole debacle smacks of reactionary short term thinking. There was a very easy case to make for sacking Amorim based solely on results, never mind the other 19 things you came up with, but its that kind of blinkered view that this new leadership were supposed to have moved beyond. I understand I was in the minority in seeing a bright future under Amorim but whether you agree or not with the decision to sack him surely it’s obvious to everyone how this was the worst way to go about it.
For the board to be proved right and justified in sacking him now, results have to improve over the second half of the season. As we’re already on course for 5th-7th place then realistically that would mean achieving 4th. As of this moment Darren Fletcher will have the same thirteen fit first team players to choose from that Amorim had against Leeds, two of which are goalkeepers. I’m not overcome with optimism for the next few months.
Dave, Manchester (At least Neville, Scholes, and Keane will be happy, that’s what really matters.)
…I feel Amorim may be a little unlucky to lose his job when it seems the squad, atmosphere and league position are better than when he took charge. However, we’ll likely never know the real story behind the final decision to part ways.
I wish the guy well and thank him for trying. We have some exciting attacking players in the squad and maybe a new guy can make a difference. Not a bad time to take over, no immediate expectation of Champions league football this season or a trophy and enough time for a new guy to assess the squad.
I suspect Amorim is leaving due to wanting to stick to his guns on 3-4-3. For that I’d feel a little sorry for him as Utd employed him knowing that. However, the club previously said they would buy players to suit a utd philosophy and not for the manager. I hope they start to live that and I hope we kick on rather than redress to a new managers completely different wants and needs, the cycle continues…
Jon, Cape Town
What Man Utd should have done then and should do now…
The last 3 results make a good case on Amorim being more suited to a mid-table Prem club, not one with high ambitions. A scruffy 1-0 win and 2 hard fought draws with relegation battlers and still being generally relived by those results are the hallmarks of mid-table mediocrity. Amorim was once linked with West Ham and I think he would have been really good for them.
Ten Hag should have been sacked that summer, but management dawdled and set the project back a couple more years. Tuchel would have been the right call to replace Ten Hag then. Now, Glasner’s probably the best pick.
Still, wouldn’t be such a bad idea to make an interim appointment of Carrick or Ole till the end of the season and bring Glasner, Emery or someone else then. One thing they should never ever do is appointing Xavi.
Hope they don’t butcher the succession plan this time around, but they probably will…
Karen As’adi
READ: Who will be the next Man Utd manager after Ruben Amorim sacking?
INE-OUT?
“The feeling at the club was that as soon as Amorim found himself under pressure he went back to his favoured system – whether it was suitable or not for the opposition.”
I’m not a fan of Amorim. I don’t like his style of play, his preferred formation or the way he makes subs. But… he is the manager. He is the one who gets to pick the team how he thinks best. I have no doubt that he wanted to be successful and to win as many games as possible. He did what he thought was best.
The board do not get a say in which formation is suitable for the opposition. I can see why Amorim was frustrated in the press conference. The board have no place in footballing matters.
Anyone who has ever had a micro-managing boss can relate.
Frustrated Thomas (MUFC)
READ: Ta-ra, Amorim. Now for Man Utd’s inept board to hire their next underling…
…I can only imagine the deluge of Amorim mails you’ve been subjected to since 10 AM. No doubt there’ll be plenty of United fans reacting with glee, and rival fans will be split between instinctively laughing at us and fretting over the potential for a new manager to bring an improvement.
As an individual, it feels like the latest in a line of gut punches as the club I grew up supporting continues to morph into just another corporate plaything at an ever increasing pace. I recognise we’ve had 20+ years of Glazernomics at this point, but the INEOS influx feels like things have veered a step further towards boardroom drama being played out in public.
A very quick look at the structure in well run modern football clubs will show a clear delineation between the business on the pitch and in the boardroom, but with a dotted line from both departments pointing in the same direction. If Jason Wilcox, as rumoured, put the manager under pressure to change his formation, you have to wonder what other boneheaded input they’ve had from on high in the past 14 months.
I get that Amorim’s record hasn’t been good. In footballing terms, justification for him continuing in the role was sparse. Improvement from a historically bad first season should be a given, and that improvement should be sustained. 31 points from 20 games doesn’t hit that mark.
BUT there were repeated assurances of continued support when things were at a far lower ebb last season, talk of this not being a quick fix, long term plan etc. Seemingly a recognition of needing to move toxic elements on and build from a fresh platform with a manager hired to concoct a medium-term antidote in playing style and culture.
That was all clearly lip service if they’ve been undermining Amorim behind closed doors, but to what end? He walks with a payoff having clearly become furiously frustrated, possibly to land in a better role before long. The decision makers, meanwhile, have again made themselves look ridiculously short-termist after the mistake of renewing Ten Hag’s contract in Summer 2024 before backpedalling in jig time.
Furthermore, they’ve signalled to every other manager out there that they’re the unchallenged shotcallers in the building and the coach needs to dance to their tune or else. It’s so reminiscent of the ego-driven nonsense that’s typified Chelsea’s managerial churn since Clearlake landed, and I’m really not here for it. Literally only a few days ago I looked at Maresca leaving Chelsea and thought to myself “what a mess it is there”. The irony.
INEOS’ arrival was sold to the fans as a handover of the football operations to an org with a track record of high performance in sport. Blah blah brains trust, Brailsford this, Ashworth that. So far, the concrete evidence suggests that they have no real on-pitch plan and are just making this stuff up as they go along.
New training grounds and stadium plans are all well and good, carry on there lads. But surely you leave the football stuff to the guy you appointed to oversee the football stuff and listen to him when he has reservations about the direction of travel? No? Sack him like a bullet instead? This Is Manchester United Football Club now I guess.
Keith Reilly
…Right decision. Wrong time and context.
Another clusterf**k from the guys up top.
Akillies
…Rinse, rinse and f***ing repeat.
Persil has got nothing on the way Manchester United washes itself.
Thank you Ruben, now who’s the next sucker to sit on that deteriorating throne at Old Trafford?
Gaptoothfreak, Man. Utd., New York (In the everlasting words of DJ Khaled, ‘you played yourself’)
Chelsea, Man Utd and the best-laid plans…
So after Chelsea sacked their manager (who won manager of the month in December), United have followed suit by sacking their manager (manager of the month in November) and it got me thinking, is it the managers, or is it their respective clubs. I’m sure there are people at Spurs with itchy trigger fingers too.
I think both positions are poisoned chalices, but that doesn’t make them unattractive to any manager, young or old. You will be paid a king’s ransom, they are both bin fires so no one will expect immediate results, but the atmosphere and culture at those places sound toxic. However the problem doesn’t seem the person doing the job, but the clubs themselves. And no one has clearly communicated their plan outside.
Whatever iota of good will United had probably vanished when INEOS took over, same with Clearlake. It is funny to see people try and run football clubs like traditional businesses, under the incorrect assumption that their success in other sectors will easily transition into football. They have been found wanting. Cut and slash might appease shareholders, it doesn’t appease fans. There are no alternative metrics you can point to and say they show success – you have one success metric, did you win.
I think Arsenal sidestepped this issue with the appointment of Arteta in a couple of ways. 1) it was never an immediate thing. We’d fallen so far, we had to be realistic. Arteta communicated that this would happen in phases, and to trust the process. The reason it worked was he wasn’t just ‘trusting the process’ – he was the one implementing it. He got rid of all those who weren’t willing or able to work in that unit and rely on what was left. 2) We stopped going for galactico signings and instead focused on the team. He worked on signing players that raised the ceiling of what was expected. He the fixed our defense and a bit of our midfield and this year we got a striker. Slow and steady we got to where we are now.
I’m not saying patience and time is something you give to everyone. Some people objectively suck, but if the environment they are trying to succeed in is set up for failure, there are generational managers who’d struggle.
John Matrix AFC
Respect to Ruben and none to fans
Hi. Long time reader, first time writer.
This whole Amorim thing has flattened my soul in a way I have been surprised over.
As we (an Aussie) finally enjoy a real test match on the second day in Sydney after smashing you lot… I am curious about the state of our support of sport in this day and age.
We are on the cusp of the worst of times.
Dictators, invasions, the silencing of the voices of the common man in anything that matters, and these spaces where fools wax anything but lyrical on what we are deeply passionate about.
So many words on this man Amorim, and I have read a boatload of them.
The shadenfreud, the disdain, the disrespect, the kicking of the dog that is lying unconscious on the ground.
The shame of us.
The factual and statistical stripping down of his tenure and everything else that is not good enough in our game. What a magnificent deconstruction in real time of what we supposedly love.
For a time I blamed the platform and then I realised – it is us.
The fans.
Our voice has found too much clear air and we all now hunger to hear the most clickable of baits. The most obscene of perspectives and opinions have come to circle around and drive the narrative. We get together in the playground like a bunch of bullies and hound whomever we can aim our sticks at. Until we achieve our only negative end.
A sacking, a collective hating, a labelling of a club as a caricature of some kind of nature.
My mate Stewie is the defining example – here at F365. An antagonistic and cranky c@#t and little more, as his silence indicates in the Arsenals better days.
Where is the expression of passion beyond the nasty schoolyard picking to pieces of real people?
Give me the singing and the arms in arms drunken joy of men and women in celebration. In joy.
Amorim was true to his word. If my son stuck to his word, or your son, or your daughter – in the way he did in the face of the pundits who used to be and no longer are, and the juggernaut of opinion that ‘news’ has become – we as parents would have been proud.
But we as fans are not.
The reason there is a ‘sack race’ is for the hungry mouths of our negativity and obscenity.
It’s like the nature of the masses in that ‘classic’ movie The Running Man. Ask Killian.
Amorim was a coach in our league that stuck rigidly to his guns in a club that is an absolute Hot Mess. Recall as they left the people behind and saved money on the souls that made the club a club to waste millions on their own arrogance….
That in itself, against the media, the pundits (most of whom used to matter for the way they played but are now essentially irrelevant because the are old or fat or not who they were) the strange idea that is public opinion…. Is a helluva thing.
Respect to you Ruben. F**k them all mate. Do you, be you, it did not work this time…. But when it does, these haters will not notice your genuine giving to the task. We will still be here in our armchairs beating our own imaginary drums that no one really hears.
Good on you mate for doing what all the haters don’t have the talent or guts or even chutzpah to do.
All the best.
Damo – Gooner in Newcastle… The new Newcastle
No sympathy for Ruben here…
Well, once again, that was a long overdue decision, made by incompetent execs that created the situation with a misjudged, superficial decision in the first place.
But as for Amorim…my God, how much humiliation can one man make and take?
His reign has been an unmitigated disaster, like an extended director’s cut of the Chelsea Villas-Boas experiment. From his early press conferences willing suffering onto the new manager bounce period, to the worst PL season in the club’s history, the worst European final performance (against one of the few teams worse in the league – though one that already hammered him that season), to arguably the worst result in the club’s history, to the most ridiculous spectacle of losing at home to 10-men-for-76-mins Everton, to the misery of basically holding on at home against what could well be the worst-ever PL team.
I would possibly have sympathy for the man due to the sheer scale of the humiliation. But he has proven himself to be a liar. All the promises that he’d resign immediately if he wasn’t wanted suddenly evaporated as soon as he sniffed his payoff after the heat finally came from above. There was no other possible outcome after the Leeds press conference – and boy did he earn that sacking, through both words and actions.
Maybe Berrada lied to him too, you can have multiple liars, but what was clearly publicly said was that in Utd’s new structure, the Director of Football sets the vision, style and recruitment and the coach implements it. This is to ensure a consistency across managers so that when one spectacularly underperforms, you have the profile of players to fit the next one. Now I’m no fan of Wilcox, and whoever picked Amorim when his style never fitted the vision should be on very thin ice, but the DoF’s job is to identify and buy players to fit the long-term style of the club, and specifically to avoid clogging the squad with players that would immediately be the wrong fit if the system changes – exactly what has been the problem when Woodward flipflopped between manager styles. Amorim asked him to do his job and to be fair, that’s exactly what it seems he was trying to do.
Oh, and not changing your tactics because it would make it seem the media made you do it doesn’t make you look big and authoritative. It’s the sort of petulant teenage behaviour which we so frequently witnessed in the press conference meltdowns.
Ernie