A WEEK after Ruben Amorim’s appointment, a staff member close to the Manchester United first team was asked about the surge in optimism around the club.
“I don’t want to get too carried away,” they replied. With good reason.
United have now sacked more managers than they did in the 17 YEARS between Sir Matt Busby’s retirement and Sir Alex Ferguson’s appointment.
Amorim referred to the 18 months left on his contract during his outburst at Elland Road on Sunday. He did not last 18 more hours.
He leaves with a lower win percentage than David Moyes and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and one slightly higher than Ralf Rangnick during his interim era.
Amorim will be remembered for presiding over a 15th-place finish and a final defeat to Tottenham to mark United’s worst season in 51 years.
The Portuguese knew what was coming when he drove into the club’s Carrington training complex early on Monday morning.
Even if television crews had sent reporters to stand opposite Carrington Riding Centre by the security hut, they would have been too late for Amorim’s arrival.
United chief executive Omar Berrada, who led the approach for Amorim 14 months ago, and director of football Jason Wilcox personally informed Amorim he had been sacked.
Wilcox has received ardent backing from United amid Amorim’s barbs in recent press conferences.
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Ruben Amorim SACKED
Ruben Amorim has been SACKED as manager of Manchester United!
The Portuguese boss has been involved in a war of words with the club hierarchy in recent days, hitting out at transfer policy and his postition as ‘coach’ rather than ‘manager’.
Now he is gone – with the likes of Gareth Southgate and Enzo Maresca among the favourites to take over at Old Trafford.
Man Utd currently sit sixth in the table but Amorim hardly set the world alight at the club.
In fact, he leaves with the WORST win rate in the Premier League of any permanent boss – just 31.9 per cent.
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Some will revel in Amorim’s demise. “HIs press conferences were better than the performances,” a confidant of one former United player said. It is a fair point.
There was much to admire about Amorim: he prioritised squad harmony by discarding surly duo Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho.
The feeling on the tour of the United States was that the pre-season mood was the best it had been at United in years.
That made their spiral early in the campaign – three defeats in their first six Premier League games – such a shock to the system for the veterans of the squad.
Some players who had a decent relationship with Amorim felt he was too standoffish.
One senior player noticed that Amorim mostly leant on compatriots Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot during his first months in charge.
Andre Onana fully expected to stay at United as late as the final weeks of the summer transfer window until Amorim suddenly changed tack.
Onana was fit for the start of the season yet Amorim elected to stick with back-up ‘keeper Altay Bayindir, whose clanger allowed Arsenal to secure an opening weekend victory.
Amorim persisted with Bayindir at Fulham the following week, Onana’s confidence plummeted and he committed two costly errors in the League Cup loss to League Two Grimsby Town.
That was the night that Amorim went past the point of no return. Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s off-the-cuff comment in October that Amorim had three years to demonstrate his coaching prowess counted for nought. Amorim lasted three more months.
Amorim made plenty of enemies in his 14 months at United. Rashford did not last a month and Garnacho was bombed out after questioning his demotion for the Europa League final.
Those two were members of the summer ‘bomb squad’ who were ordered to report for training at a different time to the core first team squad.
Kobbie Mainoo might have felt worthy of joining them amid his lack of playing time.
Mainoo started in 16 of Amorim’s 63 games in charge and last lined up in the Premier League on May 11.
Well-placed sources say Mainoo and Amorim had a shouting match at Carrington towards the end of last season.
Mainoo’s family were not fans of Amorim – something that his half-brother, Jordan, made abundantly clear with his ‘Free Kobbie Mainoo’ T-shirt stunt at Old Trafford last month.
But Mainoo refused to give up on his United career, perhaps confident that he would outsurvive the manager. He has.
That has been a trope of past United players, perhaps most infamously Anthony Martial during his nine-year Old Trafford career.
This time it is different. It was noticeable this season that Amorim was not serenaded as often as he used to be by United’s matchgoers.
His football was not consistently attack-minded and the drudgery served up in the home defeat to Everton and draws with relegation fodder West Ham and Wolves convinced the hierarchy he was no longer up to it.
Amorim can be a combustible personality and it was telling that he was at his most fractious in press conferences when his selections were questioned.
Behind the scenes, he reacted badly to feedback. United chiefs were under the assumption that Amorim’s system would evolve after a stable first phase.
United are the third-highest scorers in the Premier League but Amorim’s tendency to switch to a defensive mindset irked the club’s power brokers and supporters.
Reverting to a back three against Wolves, on two points, in last week’s embarrassing 1-1 draw was another nail in his coffin.
At Leeds on Sunday, Amorim picked nine defensive players and dropped striker Chido Obi from the bench at the expense of another defender in Godwill Kukonki.
Amorim handed debuts to five youth-teamers but his academy legacy was to suggest that there was a culture of “entitlement” among the United youngsters.
That went down badly with United suits, despite them replacing former academy head Nick Cox with Stephen Torpey five months ago.
Even the small fry encountered issues. Eighteen-year-old Shea Lacey was fit and available for several months but overlooked for first-team duty until November.
A family member claimed there was an “issue” that was not fitness-related.
Whereas former manager Erik ten Hag was gruff and blunt on camera, he loosened up and exuded warmth off it. Amorim was the opposite.
In the mixed zone at Goodison Park last February, a coat was left dangled over the railing. All of a sudden, Amorim returned to collect it.
“I wondered whose that was,” a journalist familiar to the United coach said. There was no reply from Amorim.
He can now get his coat again.
