New Year, Same Old Problems At Man United
Life really does come at you fast. Five days into 2026 and four days apart, Ruben Amorim joins Enzo Maresca in a growing list of Premier League managers who talked themselves out of a job.
In an increasingly tetchy series of recent post-match interviews, Amorim complained that the club needed to spend more money on new players in order to implement his beloved 3-4-3 formation, a thinly-veiled dig at the club's lack of activity in the January transfer window, arguing that other departments within the club needed to "do their job". However, the United hierarchy could justifiably point to the £200+ million they spent in the summer on his behalf to acquire Bryan Mbeumo, Benjamin Sesko, Cunha and Senne Lammens.
In the end, the coup de grace was his astonishing scorched-earth assertion of authority as "manager of Manchester United" rather than "head coach", which must have had the United brass scratching their heads considering he was appointed specifically as head coach. Ultimately, they decided he should be neither. Airing your dirty laundry in public is never a good idea at any football club, least of all at Man United who've always dealt ruthlessly with staff who speak out of turn to the media - Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho being two recent examples.
At 10am yesterday morning, United pulled the trigger on social media, using the familiar photo of the sad, solitary corner flag set against a backdrop of Old Trafford under a stormy-looking sky, announcing they’d parted ways with Amorim. What amazes me is that despite 12 years of drift and deficiency post-Sir Alex, United is still by far the biggest story in English football, even if it’s often for the wrong reasons. Indeed, there’s an entire cottage industry of outlets and journalists who feed off of the never-ending soap opera that is Man United.
In truth, Amorim's sacking has been on the cards for months. He leaves the club with a win percentage of around 32%, the lowest in its history. While there is mitigation around him joining in the middle of last season and inheriting Erik Ten Hag's incoherent and insubordinate squad, he was ultimately the author of his own demise through his dogmatic insistence on playing a 3-4-3 formation when he simply didn't have the players to implement it competently.
Get Eric’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Although Amorim did preside over some big wins this season against Newcastle and Man City as well as hammering Everton 4-0, the recent 1-1 draw against soon-to-be relegated Wolves ranks among the worst United performances in recent memory. His tactical inflexibility lead to an increasingly fractious relationship with the club’s football director Jason Wilcox, and ultimately, his sacking. The managers or "head coaches" at rival clubs were only too eager to pounce on Amorim’s broadcasting of his tactics, with Fulham’s Marco Silva openly boasting how of how easily his team managed a 1-1 draw with United back in August, leading a horrified Christopher Vivell, United’s director of recruitment, to share them on an internal WhatsApp group:
“We knew how they defend and we know they like to squeeze from the back five, and if you don’t give bodies for them to squeeze from the back five you can create superiority in the middle.
We know they play with two in the middle, we tried to overload with our three plus Alex [Iwobi]. It was as simple as that.” — Marco Silva
Amorim's exit leaves the United hierarchy with some very uncomfortable questions to answer:
- Why did they hire a coach known for his stubborn adherence to a 3-4-3 formation when the club lacked the players to execute it out on the pitch?
- Why did they sack him when the minority owner of the club, Jim Ratcliffe, said in an interview last year that the club would give him 3 years to achieve success?
- Why did they choose this moment, with the club 3 points off 4th place, when there would've been far more justification during the summer, before they parted with hundreds of millions of pounds on new players, or after the woeful defeat to Grimsby in the Carabao cup?
- What is the overarching plan now that the INEOS regime's marquee appointment has turned out to be a flop?
- What is the desired style of play, if not a 3-4-3?
Whatever the answers, the situation is grimly reminiscent of the pre-INEOS era, where the Glazer ownership stumbled from one bad appointment to the next, spending tens of millions of pounds on exit clauses in managers' contracts every other year, and handing senior appointments to rookie club insiders. Any reasonable fan would've a few expected bumps along the way under the new ownership model, but this is an unwelcome milestone that will draw serious scrutiny on the decisions made by Jim Ratcliffe, Omar Berrada and Jason Wilcox. Regardless of whichever manager they get to replace Amorim, there is no margin for error on the next appointment.
