It was a catchy tune, one that the United faithful sang on a loop as soon as the new man was lodged in the dugout.
“Ruben Amorim, he’ll bring the glory days again,
we’ll back him from the Stretford End,
he’ll turn the Reds arooOOOound.”
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There was only one problem. Somewhat ominously, it was sung to the air of It’s a Heartache. And so it’s proved. All over again. Well, for United fans anyway. For for the rest, it’s been a never-ending, laugh-a-minute chuckle-fest.
You might have seen that picture doing the rounds on Monday of Alex Ferguson looking down on a grim-faced . . . *deep breath* . . . David Moyes, Ryan Giggs, Louis van Gaal, José Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, Michael Carrick, Ralf Rangnick, Erik ten Hag, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Amorim. The are the 10 men tasked since 2013 – either on a temporary or permanent basis – with filling Ferguson’s shoes.
Granted, there was the odd glimmer of life along the way – a couple of FA Cups and League Cups and a Europa League. But that Mourinho insisted on describing their 2016 Community Shield triumph as a “major honour” was a fair sign of how the mighty had fallen. Himself and United. And they haven’t really got up off the floor since.
Aggro over transfer dealings appears to be the chief reason for Amorim’s departure. Well, that and his players playing like drains and his obstinacy in refusing to change a system that had their faces reading “huh?”.
True, he was missing a heap of players (injuries, Africa Cup of Nations) for the defeat away to Aston Villa last month. But when he finished up with this 11 on the pitch – Lammens, Lacey, Heaven, Shaw, Dalot, Jack Fletcher, Martinez, Dorgu, Cunha, Mount, Zirkzee – he might have concluded that turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse was beyond him.
Calamitous dealings in the transfer market – dating back to Ferguson’s retirement – has seen a mountain of loot squandered on lads who, to paraphrase Eamon Dunphy, wouldn’t get a game in the Phoenix Park.
That Amorim spent a fair chunk of his United budget on Benjamin Sesko and Patrick Dorgu – two players who have been a touch short of convincing thus far – suggested that his judgment might have been as iffy as that of his predecessors. (That’s if he actually wanted them, rather than them being the choices of the club’s crack recruitment department.)
Mind you, nothing will ever compare to Ten Hag persuading the club to part with €95 million for Antony – just the €35 million more than Erling Haaland cost Manchester City.
[ Ken Early: Amorim and Maresca departures evidence of football’s growing turf warsOpens in new window ]
And then there’s been the mortification of seeing players they let go prosper in their new homes. Scott McTominay looked like the love child of Andrea Pirlo and Ruud Gullit in his debut season for Napoli. Rasmus Højlund is averaging a goal every other game for the same club. They flogged Alvaro Carreras to Benfica for €6 million in 2024 and a year later Real Madrid bought him for €50 million.
After letting Angel Gomes go, he made the England squad. They sold James Garner to Everton for €10 million three years ago and there was talk of Amorim trying to buy him back this month for a fee at least four times that sum.
But then, this is the club that let a young Paul Pogba join Juventus for free, then bought him back for €105 million, then saw him rejoin Juve for nothing because they failed to either nail him down to a new contract or sell him. The only title they’ve come close to winning in more recent times is that of ‘Worst Run Business in Football’.
Nicky Butt put it quite succinctly last week. “The club is rotten from the bottom up, it’s been a s**t-show.” It has too. And Amorim’s reign is just the latest chapter.
From day one he had the look of a man who couldn’t quite get over what he had inherited, to the point where he declared: “We are the worst team maybe in the history of Manchester United.”
Christian Eriksen, now at Wolfsburg, said last week of the remark: “That didn’t help at all.” But Amorim wasn’t wrong. Probably best to have kept that thought to himself, though.
The low point probably came back in August when he fiddled with his tactics board, while sporting a marginally demented expression, and refused to watch the penalty shoot-out that resulted in United exiting the League Cup on a wet Wednesday night in Grimsby. That’s when you knew he regretted the day he ever left Lisbon.
The job sucked the life out of a seemingly affable, charismatic but stubborn man who hardly helped himself by persisting with a system wholly unsuited to the limited enough talent at his disposal. As for those late unfathomable defensive substitutions? No, no clue either.
Who next? Well, Wilfried Nancy is free. But seeing as the job offers nothing but a heartache, he might say, “you’re grand, thanks”.
