Ruben Amorim looks set to be Manchester United manager for the start of next season despite offering to fall on his sword and he’s a lucky/unlucky boy. His would have been a sure-fire sacking 99 times out of 100 based on the evidence of what he’s done in six months at Old Trafford.
Here are ten reasons he should obviously be given the boot.
Statistically the worst
We have to go back to 1927 and Herbert Hamlett to find a Manchester United manager with a worse win percentage than Amorim’s 36.59%. It’s the fourth worst in the club’s history. His Premier League win record of 24% is comfortably the worst of any United manager since Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign, with David Moyes’ 50% the second-worst.
The 0.92 points-per-game Amorim has won this season after Erik ten Hag and Ruud van Nistelrooy got them to 15 from the first 11 games between them would have seen United claim just shy of 35 points across a 38-game season, which would have seen them relegated in 11 Premier League campaigns this century and is the worst record after 26 games of any manager of the traditional ‘big six’ clubs.
Subjectively ‘the worst’
“We are being the worst team maybe in the history of Manchester United.” Straight from the horse’s mouth. And while Amorim’s mastery of self-deprecation over the last few months is something to be admired – at least he knows they’re sh*t – that shouldn’t obscure our view or cause us to lose sight of the fact that they are really, really sh*t.
There were widespread complaints across the fanbase over the football played under pretty much every manager since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, but there was always something to hang your hat on: Fight under Jose Mourinho; rigidity under Louis van Gaal; chaos under Ole Gunner Solskjaer. It was never good enough, but it was sometimes good, sometimes fine and sometimes bad. This is almost all bad.
What is his philosophy?
Can you tell us what Amorim’s philosophy is without referring to what he did at Sporting? After six months – six months – we don’t even know what Manchester United’s style is supposed to be. It’s 3-4-3, we sure as sh*t know that. But are Manchester United a possession-based team? What kind of pressing does he want? How high is their defensive line meant to be? Should the wide centre-backs be stepping into midfield? What’s the job of the inverted wingers?
We don’t know and the players appear to have even less of an idea. Also, any chance of a novel set-piece? Y’know, some evidence of coaching. Cheers.
Refusal to change
We wonder if Amorim has had even the slightest wobble over his dedication to stay true to what worked at Sporting through half a year of that not working in any way, shape or form at Old Trafford.
The blame for this obsession with footballing principles is often aimed at Pep Guardiola, but the Manchester City side that won the Treble is a far cry from his Barcelona side and even his early winning teams at the Etihad. Mikel Arteta has tweaked and adapted in five seasons at Arsenal. And Arne Slot has proven the value in making not insignificant changes to Liverpool’s style and system, not just across the season but during games to walk to the Premier League title.
Surely a manager who can play in multiple different ways, albeit with a few non-negotiables, is just unequivocally better than a manager who can’t. Even the most principled manager perhaps in the history of the Premier League ripped up his own rule book to get the better of Amorim and beat United to the Europa League title.
READ MORE: 16 Conclusions on Spurs winning the Europa League: Amorim sack, Postecoglou vindication, terrible Manchester United
Failure to coach players to fit the system
We understand the excuse of these United players not being good enough. They’re a damn sight better than 16th in the Premier League, but for a team that’s historically won and challenged for major titles, it’s a fair point. We also understand that many of them, seemingly most of them, do not suit Amorim’s system. They’ve got full-backs who aren’t wing-backs, wingers instead of inverted wingers, etc etc.
What we neither understand nor accept is that the majority of them can’t be coached to suit the system. They may not be their ideal positions, but surely they can be coached to improve in roles that exist in Amorim’s XI rather than being cast out before thriving away from Manchester United, as Antony and Marcus Rashford have done this season.
We’re surprised Roy Keane hasn’t told Amorim ‘it’s his job’ yet.
READ MORE: Manchester United have become Tottenham’s ‘b****’ and there is ‘only one viable option’ to fix them
Money required to buy players to fit the system
Put yourself in Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s shoes for a moment (horrible, right?) and imagine what it must be like to be told by your manager, whom you’ve hired through no little expense, that 90 per cent of the players you pay the wages of aren’t suited to his system and so aren’t in his plans moving forward.
What in your mind would be the path of least resistance? Sign five or six players this summer and another five or six next summer for £400m or whatever that would cost, or sack the manager and get someone in who could put these players to better use?
Amorim has admitted that he’s asking for “faith” he’s neither earned nor deserves and having spent £200m on Erik ten Hag’s players last summer after their worst-ever Premier League season before sacking him a couple of months later – which Ratcliffe himself acknowledges was a mistake – it would be the definition of insanity to do exactly the same thing again.
READ MORE: Ranking Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s 17 Man Utd f***-ups: 3) Ruben Amorim, 4) Dan Ashworth, 8) Kath Phipps
He’s a loser
Ok, it’s not exactly the same thing because Ten Hag won a trophy at the end of his miserable campaign while Amorim lost the Europa League final at the end of his even more miserable campaign.
We thoroughly enjoyed the Class of ’92 pundits insisting Manchester United would win on Wednesday having lost three times already to Tottenham this season through ‘logic’ amounting to nothing more than their typical This Is Manchester United b*llocks.
Presumably they and the rest of us can now finally accept that This Is Not Manchester United after they lost an actual final to actual Spurs and make judgements on a team’s chances of winning something based on how good they are at football rather than through rubbing crystal skulls and tracking the position of the moon in the week leading up to it.
And for that, Mr Amorim, we thank you.
Available managers
We’re not about to suggest that anyone could replace Amorim and mount anything close to a title challenge, but there will definitely be a few we would back to make a decent fist of what currently looks like the club’s impossible target Ratcliffe has set of sixth in the Premier League next season.
We would love to see Simone Inzaghi at Old Trafford and believe his and Inter’s policy of signing experienced players with something to prove would be an excellent method of righting the United ship. But that’s not going to happen, because a) why would he leave Inter for United? and b) United aren’t about to pay the compensation.
There are several very capable available managers though: Xavi, Marco Rose, Max Allegri, Edin Terzic. The question will be whether they could attract any of them like a moth to the flames of their dumpster fire. They could always reignite their interest in Gary O’Neil.
‘Untouchables’ to get-the-f***-out-of-our-club-ables
You might have seen the scarves – the ones with the faces of Rasmus Hojlund, Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo on them along with some sort of tagline hailing them as the future of Manchester United. They were The Untouchables ahead of the 2024 summer transfer window – the only players they would not listen to offers for.
The fact that Andre Onana and Diogo Dalot have had the same moniker bestowed upon them at points in the meantime shows just how insecure that sacrosanct status can be, but we never would have guessed a year ago that by the start of the 2025-26 season not one of Hojlund, Garnacho or Mainoo would still be at the club and that’s a very real possibility.
And it’s not because of PSR. Garnacho and Mainoo would both be ‘pure profit’ sales, but they would have been last summer too, and there’s absolutely no chance United would let them go if Amorim wanted to keep them given the extraordinary lack of players in his squad he has any faith in whatsoever.
They’ve both got flaws, sure, but United used to be a place where flawed players became infallible, where immaturity would make way for professionalism and dominance. If United’s goal is to sign players whose value can increase through their time at the club then they’ve got to have a manager willing and able to nurture them through that process.
READ MORE: ‘Sh*t season’ – Garnacho opens door to Man Utd exit after being ‘thrown under the bus’ by Amorim
No compensation
He’s f***ing asking for it, mate. No “conversation about compensation”? That’s a red or white flag depending how you look at it. Put him out of his misery and bring the next poor b*stard in.