Ruben Amorim thought he was taking charge of one of the world’s biggest football teams when he accepted the role of head coach at Manchester United last November. But now he has pulled back the curtain at Old Trafford, he has discovered the reality of a club that have been allowed to rot from the inside for the best part of a decade.
Only Amorim will know the true motivation for his decision to describe his team as the “worst in the history of Manchester United” following Sunday’s 3-1 home defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion. It was United’s sixth defeat in 12 games, their fourth league defeat at home in five and, having already suffered six home league defeats this season, the statisticians must go back to 1893-94 to find a United team with a worse home record, when that team lost seven out of 12.
Things are bad; the club’s bleakest period since the start of the Premier League era in 1992. But when you consider that United were relegated from the top division in 1974, some historical context suggests that Amorim’s comments were laced with hyperbole rather than a genuine belief that United — whose last two away games resulted in a draw at Liverpool and penalty shootout win at Arsenal in the FA Cup — have hit an all-time low.
It is true that Manchester United aren’t Manchester United anymore. The club that once dominated the Premier League, winning 13 out of the first 20 titles, stopped prioritising on-field success once Sir Alex Ferguson stepped down as manager in 2013. Amorim is paying a heavy price for that now.
It was a slow transformation at first, with United initially hiring and signing big-name managers and players in the post-Ferguson years. But with Ferguson and long-serving CEO David Gill standing down at the same time, former commercial director Ed Woodward’s installation as executive vice-chairman by the club’s owners, the Glazer family, began the shift towards off-field success being regarded as the priority.
Indeed, if Amorim wants to find the root of the problems he has inherited, he needs to go back to 2018 when Woodward went public on the importance of a winning football team at Old Trafford.
“Playing performance doesn’t really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business,” Woodward said on a conference call to United’s investors. On that same call, Woodward boasted about United’s YouTube channel registering more subscribers than NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and MLB’s New York Yankees. As for the football team, its progress, or lack of, did not merit a mention.
When a team don’t need to win to keep the owners happy, a slide towards mediocrity is inevitable. That is why United have reached the point where their new coach finds himself working with a squad that is the club’s weakest in living memory and perhaps the worst since relegation 51 years ago.
United have certainly spent big since Woodward spoke of the team not needing to win for the club to make money, with only Chelsea spending more than United’s outlay of £1.02 billion since 2018, but a lack of strategy, expertise and competence in senior positions led to a series of recruitment mistakes.
Striker Rasmus Hojlund (£64m) and winger Antony (£80.75m) were signed for vastly inflated fees, United academy forward Marcus Rashford was handed a five-year contract worth £325,000-a-week, despite a lack of interest in the player from rival clubs, and a succession of players — Casemiro, Raphaël Varane, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Edinson Cavani — were signed on expensive contracts when their best days were well behind them.
Rather than building to a plan, United have acted like a desperate shopper looking to get some expensive labels on Christmas Eve because they have been drawn in by the price on the ticket rather than the value.
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What does Ruben Amorim need to change at Manchester United?
Gab Marcotti and Julien Laurens discuss why Ruben Amorim is struggling to deliver results at Man United after his side’s 2-0 defeat to Brighton at Old Trafford.
Billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s purchase of a 27% stake as minority owner last February, which saw his INEOS team take charge of football operations, led to United’s failing hierarchy being overhauled with a new CEO, sporting director and technical director — sporting director Dan Ashworth was fired after just five months in the role — but the bad decisions of the past are nowhere near to being resolved.
INEOS inherited a club struggling to comply with the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) at the same time as needing to rip apart an imbalanced squad. Their own mistakes — extending manager Erik ten Hag’s contract and sacking him four months later — have exacerbated the problems, but Amorim is largely working with the hand dealt to INEOS by the Glazers.
The former Sporting CP coach inherited a squad which was built by four different managers. It lacks a reliable goalkeeper and a fit left-sided defender, while in midfield Amorim has already realised that neither Casemiro or Christian Eriksen have the energy to perform in the Premier League.
Even though neither Zirkzee or Hojlund are good enough for the vast majority of Premier League teams, the two youngsters are now Amorim’s only options up front due to the decision made to offload the rapidly declining Rashford and listen to offers for Antony, who has never looked like a Premier League player despite the size of his transfer fee.
But for the goals of winger Amad Diallo, United’s top scorer this season with six, Amorim’s 13th-placed team would now be firmly in a relegation battle.
Perhaps Amorim was trying to provoke a reaction from his under-performing players by describing them as “United’s worst-ever team.” He may also have been sending a distress signal to his bosses in an effort to force them to sign new players in January, despite being limited by PSR.
Amorim is right to be alarmed. This United team is woeful and with the club now making a series of losses off the pitch, Woodward’s comments about not needing to win to make money have proved to be as ridiculous as they seemed when he made them. The new manager has identified the problems and major surgery is required, but he needs INEOS to hold their nerve and back him by putting football first again at Old Trafford.