It was the second day of a new year, but the beginning of the end for Ruben Amorim. When he met Jason Wilcox on Friday, a meeting set off the chain of events that led to the Portuguese becoming the latest former Manchester United head coach. Or, Amorim would say, manager.
Wilcox, United’s director of football, was giving feedback. Amorim blew up. Not for the first time. A man who can be charming was also, as those at United could testify, emotional and erratic. But ever more had decided they could not put up with him any more. What Amorim probably did not realise, however, was that Wilcox was the last defending him, the last arguing he should be granted more time.
What he perhaps did not figure, too, was that Wilcox was not just expressing his own thoughts but those of others in the structure. In his remarkable valedictory press conference at Elland Road on Sunday, Amorim said everyone else needed to “do their job”. United see the head coach as part of a structure. Amorim’s inability to take advice or adapt led to relations breaking down and, ultimately, his dismissal on Monday.
As with much else over the last 14 months, it related to his fondness for a back three. Amorim had switched back to 3-4-3 for the match against Wolves, a couple of days before he and Wilcox met. They had failed to beat a winless team, been outmanoeuvred in midfield, and had too little attacking threat. United had thought they had seen progress when persuading Amorim to belatedly change shape. With a back four, they had scored four times in a 4-4 draw with Bournemouth. They had kept just their second clean sheet of the season to beat Newcastle 1-0.
Instead, Amorim reverted to a back three. He had told the club he would adapt, but an inflexible man did not. So United drew first with the bottom club and then against promoted Leeds. It left them with just three wins in 11 games. While Amorim departed with them in sixth, on course to meet their pre-season objective of European qualification, there is an awareness dropped points in what had looked a relatively easy run could yet cost them.
So while Amorim was dismissed the day after his explosive press conference at Elland Road, that was far from the only factor. It may well have ended up that way anyway. Wilcox and chief executive Omar Berrada conveyed the news on Monday morning: early but not so early that Amorim would not have been at the club’s Carrington training ground anyway. Even before Amorim’s outburst at Leeds, opinions shifted at Old Trafford; the frustration of the Wolves game was one turning point.
United know they could have sacked Amorim last summer after coming 15th, their lowest finish for half a century. Instead, they committed another £220m to buying players, taking their spend in his reign to £250m. Their view is that they gave him the tools and platform to succeed.
But they did want to see the team evolve and improve, which, in turn, required Amorim to change. After the chaotic nature of the end of Erik ten Hag’s reign, when football matches came to resemble basketball games as they became so open, United felt there was a logic to appointing a systems-and-structure manager. The intention, though, was that in due course Amorim would become more expansive. He had made a commitment to adapt and, while United scored more goals this season, they felt he otherwise did not.
Amorim’s frustrations with their January transfer business became apparent in his press conference on Friday. He had nevertheless bought into their data-driven recruitment last summer. United felt the best way to shoot up the table this season was to score more goals. They put the midfield on the back burner in the recruitment drive, targeting three forwards at a cost of £200m. The sense is that he would have preferred Viktor Gyokeres to Benjamin Sesko, who scored only twice for him, but his former Sporting CP striker chose Arsenal. Despite the seemingly glaring need for a midfielder, bolstering the attack remained Amorim’s priority, to such an extent that his top target in January was Bournemouth winger Antoine Semenyo.
Yet Amorim’s United often remained a tough watch: they certainly were in four of his last five home matches, against Everton, West Ham, Newcastle and Wolves. The issues were not purely systemic. The view at the club is not that a successor cannot play 3-4-3, but the demand will be to produce more exciting, entertaining football, whatever the formation.
With Darren Fletcher the latest interim, it remains to be seen who that successor is. United have not approached anyone yet. Their priority had been to try and prosper with Amorim. The view inside Old Trafford is that a manager who secured a mere 58 points from 47 Premier League games got enormous support and that Wilcox could not have done more for him. Amorim may well disagree with that.
But as United tired of him, and perhaps he of them, their own decision-making looks flawed in appointing him. And it is they who have to find a better successor.
