It’s a question, not a statement. But it’s worth asking, after yet another catastrophic defeat, if Ruben Amorim is the wrong man at the wrong time for Manchester United.
There has been a catalogue of errors in management, from the football to the operational side of things, since 2013, and so many have been repeated in that time frame. It’s easy to forget one of the first critical errors – that United hired a manager inexperienced with life at an elite club, and above him, had in place someone inexperienced with life of running an elite club.
Ruben Amorim has only just turned forty, while Sir Jim Ratcliffe admitted to being taken by surprise by the level of scrutiny that comes with running United, when he did his first round of interviews.
So United supporters are once again asked to place their trust in an unknown quantity that has the awareness to know it is an unknown quantity, at the same time as testing that trust repeatedly through a number of decisions that have been markedly unpopular with that very support.
After yet another capitulation yesterday at Newcastle, it has never been more obvious that so much rests on Thursday’s Europa League tie with Lyon; a scenario that has been engineered by making a difficult decision to create instability mid-season, hiring a manager with a completely different way of playing to the system the current players were used to, and having the inability to provide him with sufficient transfer funds in his first window.
This is not a situation caused by Jim Ratcliffe or Ruben Amorim; they are dealing with the consequences of poor decisions in the past. But, like it or not, both now have the responsibility and privilege of trying to rectify those poor decisions. It means the success rate of their own decisions has become more critical than ever. And so far, the success rate hasn’t been great, on or off the pitch.
It feels unfair that a manager so young has that sort of pressure on him; but that’s life in elite football, or at least it is life in the spotlight of the biggest club in the country.
One would think that reason would be enough to buy him some extra time, and it probably will be. The gamble with that is the price the club stand to pay – hopefully these are the lowest times, and we’ll remember them as character building, but there is always the real risk that United could get so far down the wrong road that a new transition period on top of this one could set them back another eighteen months.
The optimist would look at the recent decision to plonk Harry Maguire up front against Nottingham Forest and liken it to Jurgen Klopp’s signing of the average veteran defender Steven Caulker only to play him as a makeshift forward – but Amorim is not Klopp. He could become a Klopp, but even Klopp by that point at least had the record of upsetting the monopoly of German football.
Amorim does not have such a track record, so consequently he is left with a difficult dilemma – double down and persist with the system he prefers, or risk changing it, with no guarantee of improvement.
This is where the issue of inexperience raises its head. The noise from the Ratcliffe corner was that there needed to be a specific United brand of playing and they would be the ones to dictate it.
(Excuse the cheap plug at this point – I spent a decade researching this very topic for my most recent book, Football, Taught By Matt Busby… the early feedback has been very positive, you might think it is worth a read)
If I was to offer a very quick opinion based on the research for the book, it would cover two things – that it is very bold to assume you can impose a style of play on a club that has unique characteristics (however, not impossible), and that it has never been accomplished by imposing a tactical system that contrasts with the most popular of the day.
Of course, the hope is that Amorim is a visionary – but that hope is invested in the idea that he gets in the players he wants, and they all perform to exceptional standards. That investment of hope is placed as much in the club’s capability to deliver those players as it is the wise judgement of the manager.
What we can say is that in Erik Ten Hag’s first season we saw a consistent selection, it was decent to watch, and it yielded a trophy. More ins and outs, a huge injury list, and inconsistent selection left us less certain of progress when we struggled in the league but won the FA Cup.
With more players bought, and most back from injury, United struggled to inspire, were poor to watch, and Ten Hag was sacked.
At first, under Amorim, we struggled in an unfamiliar system. The system now looks somewhat familiar to the players, but it still maximises the weaknesses of the squad and doesn’t get the best out of the qualities we do have.
What are those qualities, you ask? The wide players, when fit and at the club (let us use Garnacho, Amad, Rashford and Antony as the four to use as the point) are better operating in the wide spaces trying to find areas behind the defence. Amad had excelled at right wing-back but struggled to make the same impact in the attack. The others are quite poor at playing exclusively in front of the defence in a narrow ten – but Garnacho has given it a go.
In Mainoo, Eriksen, Fernandes, Mount and to an extent Zirkzee, United have five decent ‘tens’, and in those momentary glimpses of improvement – ie. the single move in each game that looks nice on the eye – those players are invariably involved. The system allows for two of them, a maximum of three usually and four if Zirkzee is through the middle, but the more that are played the more concessions must be made elsewhere.
In his first few weeks in charge as caretaker manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was rightly criticised for his lack of experience. But he deployed a 4-2-3-1, a 4-3-3, even a three man defence, all in his first few games in charge.
Amorim wasn’t guided early on – it would have perhaps been wiser to have kept his counsel and say he would take his time. Instead he has been openly committed to this singular way of playing, and by proxy so have the football board above him, because this is the change they’ve backed and introduced.
A large part of Solskjaer’s good luck early on was his willingness, or ability, to be adaptable. And I say luck, because there were moments where the rub of the green fell for him, such as the memorable game in Paris.
United’s greatest managers and their greatest teams all had one thing in common – they had their tactical shapes in tune with the common shape of the day, but it was what they did within that shape to make it dynamic which brought such success. Busby’s early teams had overlapping full backs when they were meant to be, by definition, the furthest players back. The Busby Babes had half-backs that swapped and inside forwards that did the same. The late 60s team were more tactically versatile still. Docherty’s side had two sweeper defenders. Ferguson in 2009 had Ronaldo as a false forward from the wing.
Amorim’s greatest chance of success with this system will surely come through taking a risk to flood it with the players who give it the best chance of working functionally. At present, there is a risk of alienating the promise that United do have, which has potential for further headaches down the road.
United are too easy to play against. Forest and Newcastle let them have the majority of the ball and scored all of their goals from United making their own mistakes in possession.
They are often architects of their own downfall; part of the privilege of the club is being associated with a narrative arc that naturally evolves as it connects itself to the tapestry of the rich history. All-too-often, as we’ve seen recently with Andre Onana, there is a misplaced confidence that comes before a fall and, alas, resigns us to ‘banter club’.
This is not bad luck. A manager can make his luck better, but he has to use the best tools at is his disposal. United have a lot of defenders but they do not have strength in numbers – the higher the number of them on the pitch, the greater their capability to make errors, with at least three culpable once again yesterday.
So it has to be deduced that the formation and system is also a tool at the manager’s disposal, and currently, it’s not working. United’s relatively improved form – fewer defeats, at least – has been characterised both through these brief passages of play and singularly in Joshua Zirkzee, who has been given a redemption arc since he was booed by Old Trafford fans in late December.
I wasn’t one to boo, but I’m not taking the moral high ground, because I could see why it happened – it was a nadir in terms of performance, and United fans who have grown frustrated with Anthony Martial’s lack of contribution for at least four years were agitated by the prospect of watching something even worse for the next few. But Zirkzee scored the winning penalty at Arsenal in the Cup so has been given this journey of redemption, pictured as someone who has improved – yet the Sky Sports graphic before yesterday’s match reminded us he hasn’t scored in eighteen league games.
Just like the alleged improvement in the toothless game at Nottingham Forest, United’s acceptance and almost celebration of this mediocrity is more alarming than the mediocrity itself. Improvement can be tracked and seen if it is there.
Some of the issues are consequences of any managerial change, the things that happen in any transition – such as the freezing out and welcoming back of players who had been perceived a certain way by the press. It had to have contributed, rightly or wrongly, for how quickly a decision was made with Rashford, and it also happened with Casemiro, who has suffered from that barb from Jamie Carragher that ‘the football had left him’ over a year ago. He’s on a decline, that much is obvious, but the reputation meant he was not considered as a starter for some time.
The three man defence has meant reprieves for Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof. Erik Ten Hag was trying to sell Maguire in the summer of 2023; he has been a solid professional, but he and Lindelof are two players who United have kept too long.
That presents one of the biggest looming issues for Amorim; the turnover of the squad that is necessary for progress to be achieved. Much of it depends on United’s success in the Europa League; if we presume that we suffer some disappointment, the manager’s ability to negotiate in the summer is going to be restricted considerably, and will mean at best hoping for some slight progression over next year. Upper mid-table? Is that on course with winning a league title in time for the club’s 150th anniversary in 2028?
In that scenario, the departure of the more promising academy players will become necessary. Marcus Rashford should have no problem finding a £50m move considering how often we’re told it was a mistake to let him go – yet one can’t help but feel it won’t be so straightforward.
In the final days of January the propsect of selling either or both of Garnacho and Mainoo seemed serious enough. Getting a combined fee of between £80-100m for the pair might seem like a problem solved, but you’re then trading on the history of the club once again in order to facilitate a gamble. What if we sell Garnacho and get another Hojlund or Zirkzee?
What if we sell him for a player who excels in the withdrawn number ten role, but he’s the only one who plays well, and in a year, Amorim is dismissed and his successor wants to play with wide players again? Same scenario but with Mainoo?
These are risks that may have to be taken but are undisputable great gambles at a time the club can barely afford to make one. A pessimist may already look at the mess that might be left for a successor – with poor recruitment of the past already an existing issue and systemic recruitment an issue that could be inherited.
I should repeat the point that many, in fact most, of these issues were inherited by Team Ratcliffe and Amorim too. The debt that remains tied around the neck of the club tightens by the month and although there is a path to resolution of ownership, it isn’t clear, and while that remains the case there is no incentive on Ratcliffe to dip into his personal fortune and remove the debt and the interest.
Even if he does, the implication of owed transfer fees and PSR regulations associated with United’s incredible levels of under-performance all play their own part in how the club will be able to operate in the forthcoming windows.
It makes success in the Europa League this season critical when it comes to the quicker success of any plan under Amorim, and unfortunately, though he is not at all responsible for the financial handicaps that are restricting the club’s ability to even keep staff, his on-pitch decisions, such as what he does with the selection of a goalkeeper on Thursday, go some way to influencing how the club will look for the next eighteen to 24 months.
Some pressure, then, applied to him by Ratcliffe and co; and some pressure on themselves, too. That’s why you’re unlikely to hear any rumours of dissatisfaction about the manager for at least another year – in spite of the performances and results continuing to ring alarm bells. The strategic football group cannot afford to put across any impression that they have made a mistake.
What the supporters really need, more than uncertainty over selling some of its soul or promises about a shiny new stadium in the future, is some stability – some urgent reparations are needed with regards the ticketing shambles that has infected the club all season, where supporters are put first, and some responsibility needs to be taken where it really matters.
That means Jim Ratcliffe and his advisors having further negotiations with the Glazer family to expedite the full takeover of the club so that the club, its supporters and employees, no longer continue to pay the consequences for the poor decisions.
That’s not to say Ratcliffe should be forced to cough up before he’s even ready – but at least now, and with some urgency, put out some clear communication to supporters about how long that is likely to take, because only then will the pathway to some resolution become clear, and only then can the supporters start to take seriously talk about a new stadium without fear that they’ll already have been priced out, deliberately, of their season ticket long before Old Trafford is demolished.
That is their responsibility to the support, who are being asked to invest more again to watch the worst Manchester United team in fifty years (and there are plenty of supporters older than that who will tell you this is the worst in their lifetime).
Being asked to invest more in the knowledge that at least one more season of this sort of standard is to be expected if things don’t go our way on Thursday night.
Being asked to invest more in the knowledge that if things don’t go United’s way on Thursday night, it heightens the risk of another manager losing his job, and the probability of another period of transition with no promise of financial stability in the future. How can that be, that such a sentence is being written about Manchester United?
Because if things go wrong on Thursday, it is likely that the supporters, or the club’s employees, will be forced to carry the burden once more, and pay for the financial consequences of a debt that is not theirs. And if they can’t afford to – then your loyalty is worth nothing.
That’s a lot of pressure to put on the shoulders of a young manager, who is merely hoping that his faith in a tactical system is well-placed, and that his decision in persisting with it over making a compromise, brings success. A lot of pressure applied to his choice of goalkeeper. A goalkeeper he didn’t buy or can’t have the funds to replace.
Manchester United have paid the price for a succession of poor decisions in their choice of manager over the last decade. If they have made the wrong choice this time, the cost will continue to be passed on to the supporters.
That’s not the unpalatable thing; the unpalatable thing is that we’re in that position at all.
That Ruben Amorim’s choice of goalkeeper, or his persistence with a dysfunctional system, could come with such serious, life-changing repercussions.
Whether or not he’s the right man for the job as Manchester United manager, it’s too much responsibility to lumber him with. And he’s simply too young to have been given a job where the responsibility is too great.
It feels like too great a gamble to have taken a diversion from the club’s traditional identity, declare that you are going to redefine what that is, and not have the capability to deliver it yourself.
Ultimately, the hiking of prices of season tickets and the loss of the loyal support will be much more costly to the club; firstly, it will not bring in sufficient revenue to impact PSR in any significant way, it will not clear debt, and what you lose in disenfranchised supporters will extend to the loss of neutral goodwill or support for future decisions.
Such as faith in your choice of manager.
Faith in the major decisions is not to be taken for granted. Respect is earned, not given, and there is no credit in the bank. Quite literally.
This is a can which will be impossible to kick down the road for too long, and no amount of ticket price rises or selling Kobbie Mainoos will be able to keep the wolves from the door.
The cost of removing the price of the debt and interest, and the funding of a new stadium, will only be facilitated, ultimately, by a full takeover.
Ratcliffe, INEOS (though they didn’t create the mess) and the Glazer family are the ones with the responsibility for communicating the intention of that.
And nobody else – Ruben Amorim, or any Manchester United supporter – ought to be bearing any more of the responsibiluty than they already have. It’s quite a lot of pressure to put on a manager and a group of players for a Thursday night fixture against Lyon. And even if United win, the next round will become, once again, the most crucial fixture for the club in a generation. Kicking the can down the road once more.
