The timeframe for head coach Ruben Amorim’s exit from Manchester United has been predicted, with one condition tipped to seal his fate.
Amorim is among the favourites to be the next Premier League manager sacked as he’s endured a horrible six months at Old Trafford.
The former Sporting Lisbon boss was headhunted by INEOS following their decision to sack Erik ten Hag and he decided to join Man Utd mid-season, despite initially being against this idea.
Amorim should be regretting this decision as he’s swapped a title race in Portugal to a basket case in Manchester as his dismal squad has failed to get accustomed to his 3-4-3 formation.
Performances and results under Amorim have been worse than they were under Ten Hag as Man Utd are at risk of finishing 17th in the Premier League. They have also come up short in the Europa League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup, so they won’t play in Europe next season.
It would be harsh to sack Amorim before he’s had the opportunity to build a more-suited squad, but former Man Utd assistant Rene Meulensteen reckons he’ll be gone after ten games next season on one condition.
“He has to win eight out of 10 or 90% of the games at the start of the season, that’s how long ten Hag was given (sacked after nine league and one EFL cup games on October 28th),” Meulensteen told Tipman Tips.
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“If he keeps doing what he’s doing, and sticks to the same system with the same players, then he won’t be there too long; there’s been no improvement.
“I’ve not been very convinced by the way he has addressed the media. People applaud him for his honesty, but at some point, you have to realise the position at the club that you manage, and the position the club is in. What people want to hear is a vision, a strategy, a way forward.
“People want to know how you can get out of this mess rather than reinforcing how bad it is, but I don’t hear that. He’s questioning too many things, and he’s questioning himself, and that is never a good thing.
“Amorim should have done better because he’s had plenty of time now working with the players, and you question the disconnect when you constantly see these poor performances. Do they lack quality? Are the messages not getting across to the players? Or is it the rigid system?”
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Meulensteen has also argued that the “writing is on the wall” for Amorim, who has made one huge “mistake”.
“The writing has been on the wall for quite some time. You could see there was a negative line in terms of performances and results under ten Hag. Eventually, when that line was persistently going down, they got rid of ten Hag to bring Amorim in,” Muelensteen added.
“If you look through all the stats, all the numbers, and all the performances, that line continues to decline. Apart from in the Europa League, which was a different competition, and even then, it required luck in the miracle game against Lyon. They could have easily been knocked out, and you would have looked at a far more dour season.
“Amorim made a mistake in the beginning by saying ‘I want to play the 3-4-3 system, and I’m not going to change’, so he started putting round pegs in square holes.
“He could have done himself favours by saying, ‘I’m in favour of playing a 3-4-3, I’ve had a lot of success with it. However, I don’t know yet if that will work for Manchester United yet I need to get to know the players, I need to get to know the league’.
“That would have given him far more flexibility to tweak it a little bit here and there, because at the end of the day, you’re in the results business.”