Is the Man Utd axe ‘looming’ for Ruben Amorim? No, but many want you to think that. Meanwhile, Gary Neville is the king of hyperbole.
**Back, sack and crack**
Let’s start with the obvious here; the axe is not ‘looming’, is it? Unless an axe can ‘loom’ for about six months. Can it? Maybe it can. We always thought that ‘loom’ implied imminence but maybe everything is looming, all the time. That’s nice because it means retirement is looming.
Ruben Amorim is not about to get sacked. Having made a ludicrous decision based on the result of one cup final a year ago, even the loons of Manchester United are not about to make another. But **The Sun** would quite like you to think that, please thank you.
As for the **Daily Mirror** – lovely headline, but it’s absolutely nonsensical.
It reads like an ultimatum but all Amorim is saying is basically that a) he won’t quit and b) he will be sacked if things don’t improve.
“That is a normal thing,” said Amorim, presumably not yet aware that the media in this country is far from normal.
‘RUBEN AMORIM has changed his tune and vowed he will not quit Manchester United,’ screams the back page of the **Daily Star**.
Changed his tune? At the very, very most Amorim [**sort of hinted he might leave**](https://www.football365.com/news/embarrassed-ruben-amorim-quit-decision-man-utd), in the minutes after a devastating defeat, in a foreign language.
What happened on Wednesday was a clarification, not a RU TURN. Oh yes they did…
**Send in the clowns
**But as Richard Keys wrote earlier this week: “How long have I been saying Ruben Amorim has been trying to get the sack? You all laughed at me. Well, now what? Because this weekend, he all but resigned. It’s hard to interpret his post-match comments after the West Ham defeat any other way.”
Well now what? We’re still laughing Keys, you clown.
**Not Going Outgoing
**We almost have to admire the **Manchester Evening News** for this massive piece of sh\*housery on their academy notebook piece…
> Jason Wilcox has already started talks to replace outgoing Manchester United coach
Really trick to fit ‘Under-18’ into that headline.
**Decisions decisions
**Over at the **Evening Standard**…
> Manchester United make Ruben Amorim sack decision ahead of Europa League final
Is the ‘sack decision’ that they won’t sack their manager just because he loses a one-off game when he hasn’t had a pre-season or a transfer window?
How the hell did we guess?
**The Neville diaries
**Gary Neville is the John Lewis of pundits; his views are never knowingly undersold.
We all change our minds over the course of a season but to go from [**predicting Manchester United would finish above Liverpool**](https://www.football365.com/news/neville-drops-bold-liverpool-prediction-man-utd-advantage-ten-hag-side-finish-higher) in pre-season and saying this of United’s midfield…
> “I think Manchester United have got more in midfield. I think they’ve got more depth, and they’ve got good players in there. Kobbie Mainoo, who’s coming into that now, alongside Casemiro, Fernandes is in there, Mason Mount’s in there. McTominay is in there.”
…to this before the Europa Cup final against Tottenham…
> “The biggest reason is when I look at every single player in the Tottenham team, when you look at (Dejan) Kulusevski, Son (Heung-min), Brennan Johnson, (Dominic) Solanke, if (James) Maddison was there, (Yves) Bissouma and (Pape Matar) Sarr, (Cristian) Romero and (Micky) Van de Ven, (Pedro) Porro and (Destiny) Udogie, when you look at those players, like-for-like with United’s, only Bruno (Fernandes) would get into the first 11 of Spurs.”
Gary, even Pape Matar Sarr doesn’t get into the first XI of Spurs. And yet you now prefer him to Mainoo, to Casemiro, to Mount, who were going to somehow help United finish above Liverpool this season? Sometimes maybe just pick the middle ground.
**Stall order
**It’s always within the online pages of the Reach empire that we find the real gold. It starts in the **Mirror**:
> Man Utd’s ‘brutal response’ after getting £5m tip-off about Tottenham star
Regular Mediawatch readers will already suspect that a) literally nobody has said ‘brutal response’ and b) this is very probably not news.
And your instincts are absolutely bob on because the ‘Tottenham star’ in question is James Maddison, who was worth around £5m back in 2016, when Manchester United received this ‘tip-off’.
As for the ‘brutal response’, let’s hand over to Ian McGarry:
> “I contacted someone I knew at Manchester United in their recruitment department and said look you’re going to get a bargain here, this guy’s going to be a huge player in the future and he’s available for around £5m and he’s also a Manchester United fan.
>
> “They didn’t take any notice.”
That really is a ‘brutal response’. Anybody with a child is getting about 17 ‘brutal responses’ every single day.
But that ‘story’ of course has legs, especially if you are a Senior Sport Central Audience Writer tasked with a Manchester United news round-up for the **Manchester Evening News**:
> James Maddison to Man United transfer ‘response’ as new Ruben Amorim sack verdict delivered
They have dropped the ‘brutal’, which is something, but they have added an ‘as’ that suggests this really is news.
What they have also added is a ‘view’. And what a view.
> “It’s hard to see how Maddison would have worked at United with Bruno Fernandes playing in a similar position for the Reds. Ultimately, he is unlikely to have made a huge difference, and his career would have probably stalled at M16.”
Pesky facts: Maddison was available in 2016; Bruno Fernandes joined Manchester United in 2020.
Ultimately, that seems quite important when assessing whether Maddison’s career would have ‘probably stalled’.