Let me start by saying that I know the last few weeks have been grim.
Losing via a penalty shootout to lowly Grimsby in the Carabao Cup, a 3-0 trouncing in the Manchester Derby, and the league table isn’t a pretty sight either. I get it, the optics are dreadful, and Ruben Amorim’s body language on the touchline isn’t helping.
But we absolutely cannot sack him.
Context matters here, and the fan base needs to be sensible enough to ignore the press and take a long term view.
Sacking Ruben Amorim now is the worst possible move. It’s exactly what we have done ever since Alex Ferguson retired. We convince ourselves the new guy is the one, then, 18 months later, people are clamouring for Moyes/Van Gaal/Mourinho/Solskjaer/Ten Hag/Amorim out. It’s madness. It hasn’t worked for the last 10 years and it won’t work now.
We need to stick with Ruben Amorim. Double down on our investment. Commit. Otherwise we just kick the can down the road to the next guy, and the same thing will happen again.
Hear me out.
The Cost of Constant Change
Since Fergie, United have become synonymous with short termism.
Ole Solskjaer lasted the longest, surviving just shy of 3 years before getting the bullet, and each manager has left behind an expensive trail of compensation payouts for them and their staff, and a squad littered with players bought for a system that no longer exists.
The financial results last week tell the story better than I can. Record revenues of £665.5 million, despite having no European football… and we made a £33 million loss. Constant hiring, firing and restructuring are a big cause of this, and some fans want to add to the mounting cost of severance packages and wasted signings? It’s madness.
Every sacking resets the clock. When a new manager arrives, he needs time to assess the squad, bed in his philosophy, bring in new players and get rid of those he doesn’t need. This all costs so much money, and it’s never given a real chance to work before the club loses patience. So the cycle repeats, the club never moves forward, and the fans sit in the pub wondering why we are always in transition.
This can’t go on.
Why I Still Back Amorim
Ruben Amorim only took charge last November. So for me, last season was irrelevant. His tenure started in August, and he inherited a real mess. It was one of the most fractured squads in United’s modern history. Injuries were rampant, key positions were undermanned, the dressing room was full of toxic want-aways, and a brand new backroom staff were in place realising there was no money left. The club was in crisis on the pitch and behind the scenes.
How long has Amorim had to deal with all of that? Less than a year. Come on, what did you realistically expect after such a short space of time? This is what transition looks like, and we need to see it through.
This summer saw major changes. Senior players left, we got rid of the bomb squad and signed some genuine talents in their place who genuinely seem to love the club. But Amorim didn’t get the midfielder he was crying out for, and whether or not he got his man in goal remains to be seen, but I suspect not.
The squad he wants is starting to take shape, but he still hasn’t had a full transfer window aligned with his long term vision. We certainly don’t have a settled project. When we do, we can start judging him.
In other words, Amorim is working with an incomplete toolset, so pulling the trigger on him before he has even built the squad he wants is not just unfair, it’s stupid.
Toughest Start in the League
I wrote about this before the season began, but we also need to remember the Manchester United had the toughest start to the season of any club in the Premier League. That’s not my opinion, that’s official.
We face the best teams in the league early on, often away from home, and all of them are rivals absolutely loving our current situation. No chance to build confidence, no chance to build a run of wins and get some points on the board, not much to be happy about. It was always going to be rough, but as I said then, our season starts around week 10. That’s when we can start climbing the table.
What I mean is, this run of results was not unexpected. So now they are a reality, why are we panicking?
(The Grimsby game aside, obviously, that was a sh*t show.)
Don’t Be Manipulated by the Media
Then there is the media. You know they whip up a storm around Manchester United on purpose, right? No other club gets the sort of negative attention we do.
Managerial changes at Manchester United are big business for them. People click on their articles, watch their videos, and buy their papers. The media go out of their way to get United managers sacked because it puts food on their table. Then, when he’s gone, they can sell papers speculating on the replacement.
So every defeat is a ‘catastrophe’, every time we don’t get a player we wanted we are ‘in crisis’, it’s always ‘yet another blow to Amorim’, or whoever is in the hot seat at the time.
If they can get the fans to turn on the manager, the manager is as good as gone, so don’t let the media manipulate you. Ignore the noise.
Amorim Has His Faults
Of course, none of these means Amorim is beyond criticism. He has his faults.
His tactical rigidity has been obvious and at times he comes across as stubborn and unable to adapt mid-game. Then there is his demeanour at press conferences and on the side of the pitch. Gloomy, depressed, sulky – it’s not a good look and it frustrates fans who want to see passion and determination.
However, his presentation shouldn’t be confused with his progress. The football has shown glimpses of improvement, with a more aggressive pressing style on display and some nice passing and movement around the ball. The Arsenal game is a prime example.
Of course Amorim has flaws, don’t we all? What matters is we see him learning, adapting, and building when things go wrong. We aren’t always seeing that at the moment, which is about the only fair criticism I have heard of him so far.
The Bigger Picture
Things are bad, and they will remain bad for a while, but we need to see the bigger picture here.
We have to stop looking for a quick fix. It doesn’t exist. There is no magic manager who can come in and turn the club around by the end of the season. Getting Manchester United back on track will take time, but crucially, it will take a period of sustained stability.
That means backing the manager, not creating more debt, more upheaval, and more uncertainty.
Of course I’m not saying that Ruben Amorim gets a free pass forever, but he has barely even got started, and already people are calling for his head. If we get a few seasons down the line and we are still finishing 15th then the conversation needs to change, but right now, we have to give him a fighting chance.
Remember, he’s less than a year in, after inheriting the biggest mess imaginable, he’s mid-way through a squad rebuild, and had the hardest start to his first season out of any other manager in the league. And all while the press try to manipulate a pile on. No one is succeeding in that situation.
Sacking Ruben Amorim now does not solve the problem, it postpones it, makes it worse even. It restarts the doom cycle and makes the club even less attractive for the next man.
I’m done with that cycle. It needs to end. So for God’s sake, don’t sack Ruben Amorim.