MAC OF THE NET COLUMN: Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim is under huge pressure after a dreadful start to the new season for the Red Devils
08:00, 30 Aug 2025
Chris McKenna
Chris McKenna is the Daily Star's boxing correspondent and an expert voice on the 'sweet science', along with a hugely experienced football reporter, who primarily focuses on Merseyside giants Liverpool and Everton. He has covered world title fights all around the world, Champions League finals, FA Cup finals and Premier League title deciders.
Manchester United head coach / manager Ruben Amorim reacts during the Premier League match between Fulham and Manchester United at Craven Cottage on August 24, 2025 in London, England.
Pressure is already mounting on Ruben Amorim(Image: Catherine Ivill - AMA/Getty Images)
Ruben Amorim is not working at Manchester United because he’s too wedded to a system. Erik ten Hag didn’t work out at Manchester United because he didn’t have a style of play. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was more about style over substance some said.
Patterns of play is a phrase overly used in football these days. There’s a pattern at United and that’s bad results. That is all it comes down to.
Not style talk, not formations. United are all about results on the pitch and they’re not getting them under another manager.
Now Amorim deserves to be under huge pressure after being at the helm for United’s worst ever cup humiliation on Wednesday night. Losing to League Two opposition - even if Grimsby Town were brilliant - is almost a sackable offence in itself. But there’s plenty of revisionism about when it comes to the discussion on United.
Many a Monday Night Football or football discussion show was led with talks of how Ten Hag had ‘no style’.
Ruben Amorim is yet to win a game this season(Image: Getty Images)
The counterargument was always that people would accept United losing games if there was a style of play and the manager was building something. This column called it out as folly then and it is being proven now.
Because United went too far the other way and got a manager so stubborn to his formation and style he won’t shift from it.
Performances against Arsenal and Fulham were good but they delivered one point. That has rightly been called out as not good enough. But there was, as this column called, no attitude from the same pundits of ‘well we can see the style he has and they’re trying to build so we will forgive the results’.
No, instead they’re saying good performances aren’t enough, they need results. There’s no hiding place at Old Trafford for managers. The only thing that matters is winning games.
Ruben Amorim, Manager of Manchester United, looks dejected during the Carabao Cup Second Round match between Grimsby Town and Manchester United at Blundell Park on August 27, 2025 in Grimsby, England
Ruben Amorim looked shell-shocked after defeat to Grimsby(Image: 2025 Getty Images)
United shouldn’t have needed a manager on the sidelines to go to Grimsby and win given the array of supposed talent on the pitch. But the focus hones in on the manager now. As he said himself, you can’t change 22 players.
Whether he sticks to his guns or changes it up, tactics and styles of play won’t save Amorim. Talks of needing a rebuild and ‘open heart surgery’ as Ralf Rangnick once put it won’t either.
United are too big to undergo rebuilds quietly. They’re not Arsenal and talk of comparing their revival under Mikel Arteta is foolish because they don’t have anywhere near the same media glare.
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Amorim looks like a man ready to walk but if he wants to fight for his job then it will all come down to results and winning games.
United will never be able to give a manager two or three years to build and, despite what pundits say when it suits their agenda, showing signs of a style of play is not enough. Only winning is.
Forget about performances, style of play, formations. Amorim needs results and fast.