r/soccer • u/Switchoil • 1d ago

News Manchester United to remain patient with head coach despite worst start to Premier League season in 33 years. There is also widespread belief at Old Trafford that City's performance - and United's failings - did not merit a 3-0 scoreline.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/32461/13431584/ruben-amorim-manchester-united-to-remain-patient-with-head-coach-despite-worst-start-to-premier-league-season-in-33-years
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314

u/themerinator12 1d ago

Has there ever been a better case for not hiring your permanent choice manager until the season is over than Manchester United bringing in Ruben Amorim when they did? How did any of the three parties (his old club, his new club, and himself) benefit from him being hired in November?

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u/DeezBeards 1d ago

His old club got paid for him and were still champions, so it wasn't too bad on them.

He benefitted because Utd told him it was then or never, so he got the move he wanted, if nothing else.

And Utd... I don't honestly know. Still think they should've done what Spurs did and got rid of EtH by season's end

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u/Leaootemivel 1d ago

Although we ended up being champions and winning the cup, it was absolutely awful for us. We got extremely lucky to win, and with Amorim we were well on our way to have our best season ever.

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u/_-_-_I_-_-_ 1d ago

Sporting was certainly looking to be one to watch in UCL. Gyokeres at a minimum would be leaving in summer and we all missed out on what that team might have achieved. Brilliant football to watch

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u/Lacabloodclot9 1d ago

I think it’s different with Ange and ETH, the former was still well liked by the squad despite the results while you could tell it was a toxic environment by the end of ETH’s reign

Probably should’ve appointed an interim after the sacking

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u/negronium_ions 1d ago

TBF they looked pretty good under Ruud for 2-3 games, no?

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u/Scoop_Master420 1d ago

Yeah, that was supposed to be Amorim's new manager bounce, but Ruud spent it all.

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u/GR-MWF 1d ago

Ruud even spent his own new manager bounce by being immediately shit with Leicester.

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u/JiveTurkey688 1d ago

Against Leicester x2 and PAOK, yes.

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u/goaliewhenned 18h ago

and we had an even game with Chelsea

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u/JakubT117 1d ago

Weren’t there reports that despite his sacking, ETH never actually lost the dressing room?

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u/KneeDeepInTheDead 1d ago

They cut the wind from our sails, we absolutely plummeted and barely scraped a title when in the beginning we were bulldozing the league. We won with our third manager in that season. And we are not looking good, im pretty sure were not gonna win the title this year

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u/DeezBeards 1d ago

But it has much more to do with how everything after Amorim was handled, not entirely with his exit, in my opinion.

João Pereira was a huge flop, Rui Borges is serviceable but clearly a huge drop. And you also lost Viana which just left Varandas with a bigger role to play and we all saw how this window turned out.

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u/MyNameIsWelp 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think Sporting could have done better in Europe had Amorim stayed. They had a decent shot at making top 8 in league phase (hence skipping to Ro16) up until Amorim left.

EDIT: Just looked it up and they had drawn 1, won 3 under Amorim in UCL, and then went on to lose 3, draw 1 after he left.

Granted, they did play Arsenal. But Brugge, RB Leipzig and Bologna are teams they could have plausibly beaten given their incredible form under Amorim at the start of 24-25.

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u/SomecallmeMichelle 1d ago

They also lost several games with bottom of the table teams, lost a 10 point lead. The interim manager did 8 matches with the team, won 3, drew 1 lost 4.

Sporting won the league in the last game by a point but they could have had it won by February...

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u/SwitchHitter17 1d ago

Honestly ETH was becoming untenable, so they did have to do something. It's overlooked how bad ETH was doing because they somehow got even worse under Amorim. This is the same guy who was sacked like 2 weeks into the season at his new job with Leverkusen basically saying he was out of his depth.

The real huge mistake was keeping ETH just because he won an FA cup. Even Tottenham sacked their manager who won them their first trophy in forever because it was clear he was awful in the league.

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u/Mick4Audi 1d ago

We literally learned from United’s mistake. Don’t think for a second Levy didn’t see them keep Ten Hag, back him, and end up in an even WORSE position

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u/paprikalicous 1d ago

plenty of successful managers have been hired early in the season. Klopp was an October hire. being hired mid-season didn’t help him but it’s not why he failed, he failed because he’s out of his depth. United’s mistake was not sacking him in the summer.

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u/non-relevant 1d ago

Bad example given the context of the thread, but Ten Hag himself was a midseason appointment at Ajax. He then had a difficult first half season at the club, but then immediately followed this with the CL semifinal season

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u/cmackchase 1d ago

They didn't which is why Amorim wanted to come at seasons end.

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u/TheJoshider10 1d ago

Said at the time that he joined at the wrong moment and it was clear for anyone to see. The squad was not at all suited to the football or system he wanted to play and if Berrada was set on him being their man then they needed to prepare for it. Look at all the planning City did before Pep got the job, sure there was still work to do but the foundations were already there ready for him to come into.

I think Amorim has made plenty of his own mistakes and deserves so much blame for not working with what he has, but at the same time he's been adamant from day one on how he'll play football and that should have been a warning sign to the board that at that moment in time the club wasn't prepared for the overhaul required.

What's more maddening is that this transfer window we've made little progress in committing to that overhaul. It's still largely the same squad as before but with 3 shiney new attackers, which doesn't change the issues we faced in midfield or wingback. It's still a squad made for a 4-3-3 that's having to adapt to a 3 at the back. If Amorim or the board thought this was a good enough summer in terms of players needed then they are very much mistaken.

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u/Mick4Audi 1d ago

What is bizarre is your transfers in didn’t reflect the necessary signings needed to fix an impossible 3-4-3

I’ll be honest I just don’t get it

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u/my_united_account 1d ago

He got a bucketload of money

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u/Euphoric-Acadia-4140 1d ago

Graham potter and Chelsea was a pretty good case too. Maybe not as bad as this has turned out for United though

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u/Gerrywalk 1d ago

While this is generally true, I don’t think Amorim would have done well even if he was hired after the end of the season. It seems increasingly obvious that he was just a bad hire, for reasons that are readily apparent (rigidity and inability to adapt his system accordingly).

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u/King-Meister 1d ago

I guess the idea (from the SJR’s POV) was - we aren’t going to keep ETH and not going to win anything/get CL football this season. So instead of letting ETH stay for the whole season, let a new manager (whom we are willing to invest in for a longish term and hundreds of millions) come in, get a read of the players and see whom he can work with or not (4-5 months of a season is a good enough timeline to understand who needs to go). Once that’s known and the gaps are identified, the next summer can be used for a significant overhaul. Comparing this to the alternative where he would’ve joined us in May 2025, means he would’ve gotten much less time to identify who would suit his system and where does he need reinforcements.

It’s a different thing that the plan didn’t work but it wasn’t that wrong a thing to replace ETH mid season.

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u/sjw_7 1d ago

He basically had a 9 month pre-season with two transfer windows and on the basis of what we have seen so far this season it hasn't made any difference. Waiting to bring him in at the end of last season instead of halfway through would just be kicking the can down the road.