BRENT A GOB: This week, Harry Brent's gone in two-footed on Manchester United and Chelsea following the surprise dismissals of both Ruben Amorim and Enzo Maresca
12:58, 08 Jan 2026
Harry Brent AI
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Our man Harry Brent is raging in his latest column
Chelsea are an absolutely bonkers football club. They're like a mix between Britney Spears and Ross Geller from Friends.
Addicted to chaos and never more than a few months away from a messy divorce. One minute they're smashing PSG and Barcelona, the next they're hiring Liam Rosenior – a man who played second fiddle to Wayne "allergic to managerial competency" Rooney at Derby. Imagine that. Being deemed less qualified than Wazza. Beyond parody.
Enzo Maresca might not have been everyone's cup of double-shot espresso, but he'd done something no Clearlake-era coach had managed: he made a billion-pound rabble look vaguely like contenders.
Enzo Maresca
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Enzo Maresca was fired by Chelsea(Image: PA)
But after a couple of dodgy results and having the sheer gall to ask for a bit more control over his own team, he's gone – hoofed into Row Z like a Nicolas Jackson bicycle kick.
Under Roman Abramovich, everything was a bit mad at Stamford Bridge. But at least you knew who the big man was. These days, Chelsea are a bigger circus than Robert Sanchez's 2024/25 highlights reel.
You've got Todd Boehly, Behdad Eghbali, two official sporting directors, three unofficial ones, and about 48 other pencil-pushing suits doing more meddling than Scooby Doo and the gang in a haunted mansion.
Todd Boehly
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Rosenior is the sixth manager of the Todd Boehly era at Chelsea(Image: Getty Images)
New Head Coach of Chelsea Liam Rosenior at Chelsea Training Ground on January 6, 2026 in Cobham, England
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Liam Rosenior was unveiled as Chelsea manager on Tuesday(Image: Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)
It's a structure that chokes managers the way Alejandro Garnacho chokes when there's a team-mate to pass to - no wonder they've had a bigger turnover of coaches than Emma Raducanu has.
The last decade of the Premier League has been dominated by Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal – three clubs who hand total control to their managers the way Andre Onana hands total control of the ball to grateful opponents.
If Chelsea think they can dominate with a setup more needlessly confusing than the plot of Inception, they're as deluded as a man trying to win a Grand Prix on a combine harvester.
Ruben Amorim during his time with Manchester United
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Ruben Amorim was sacked out of the blue on Monday(Image: Martin Rickett/PA Wire)
Never one to be outshone in the Badly Run and Unstable stakes, Manchester United sacked Ruben Amorim with the team – *checks notes* – sitting in their highest league position since he arrived at the time. Inspired stuff.
It takes industrial-strength numbskullery to hire a man whose 3-4-3 system fitted United's squad about as well as a pair of skinny jeans fits Steve Bruce, stick by him for six woeful relegation-circling months, then sack him after splurging a quarter of a billion quid on players he's specifically asked for.
Let's be frank. Sir Jim Ratcliffe has ballsed this up the way Elon Musk ballsed up X - formerly Twitter when it was still good. He's damaged a global institution by firing needlessly, spending stupidly and flip-flopping between hare-brained schemes like Wile E. Coyote.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe
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Sir Jim Ratcliffe has overseen a dismal period at Man Utd(Image: Getty Images)
United are actually doing alright at the moment, especially by their Rasmus-Hojlund-p***-poor standards. They've lost just twice in the league since September and were three points off a Champions League spot when Amorim got the chop.
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Hitting the abort button now makes about as much sense as handing Harry Maguire the captain's armband again. Ratcliffe has paid for renovations, then binned the architect with the house half-built and the roof still missing.
He keeps promising to restore the glory days, but all he's done so far is turn the Theatre of Dreams into the Theatre of Memes. Old Trafford into Old Laugh-ord. And Man U into ManUre.