Another day, another booby trap. It is not, as Wayne Rooney suggests, naivety that is hampering Ruben Amorim, but his searing honesty, which might be saying something about his capacity to manage effectively at this level.
Sometimes it is better to say nowt than put yourself through the punditry mincer. In making plain that the ambition of Manchester United is to win the Premier League, Amorim was guilty only of stating the bleeding obvious. Rooney’s interpretation ignored the context of Amorim’s wider point but made headlines, a bit like observations about his own managerial experience.
Amorim is mana for the politburo of ex-United players in the media, whose job it is to pick apart his every kick and spit. Amorim has been a generous donator with his incendiary fulminations, including a reference to the worst United team in history and his preference for a 63-year-old goalkeeping coach over Marcus Rashford.
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These are all barely disguised digs at the quality of the squad he inherited, which includes a brace of expensive, non-scoring strikers, a goal-keeper vulnerable to errors, a defensive cohort unsuited to controlling games from the back and a dearth of options out wide.
United finished 14th last season under Erik ten Hag, exactly the position they occupy now. Losing at home to Fulham in the FA Cup was hardly a shock for a team that has lost seven times at Old Trafford in the Premier League this season. This is the reality.
The questions are how much has Amorim contributed to the failures engulfing the club? And is it reasonable to hold him responsible? There are plenty of examples of coaches turning around malfunctioning teams without changing personnel. Marcelo Bielsa transformed a Leeds United squad struggling in the Championship into a promotion-winning team.
When Frank Lampard assumed control at Coventry City in November, they were two points above the relegation places. Three months hence, following a run of eight wins in nine league games, Coventry have moved into the play-off places. Lampard has been sacked by Chelsea and Everton. Maybe he just wasn’t ready.
On the other hand, he is managing at Coventry without having to answer to the nation media every game. The level of scrutiny is not disruptive, his post-match comments of little interest outside the City walls.
This was Amorim’s experience at Sporting Lisbon, the level of intensity a grade or two lower than the radioactive variety experienced at Old Trafford. He arrived with a big idea, and stuck to it dogmatically to the detriment of the team.
He reasoned that since what had gone before wasn’t working it would be foolish to continue along that path. That was in the early days when his grasp of the job was an abstraction based on data, rather than the experience of managing one of the biggest news drivers in the world game. A little over three months into the job he appears adrift on a vessel he cannot steer, the ship driving him rather than the reverse.
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Amorim acknowledges the issues honestly enough. He sees what we see, identifies the shortcomings and explains his frustrations. All good, but his job is to solve the problems as well as lay them out. He has inherited an unbalanced, poorly assembled squad. Either too short on talent, too long in the tooth or too lacking in character and personality.
Again, in a quieter environment he might have been able to bring his coaching acumen to bear more readily. In the United crucible there is no time to develop and no scope for error. Amorim is not serving an apprenticeship here. He was employed to lead and to win.
This season is already a write-off. There is no scope for another change of management at this juncture. The double debacle of retaining Ten Hag and appointing Dan Ashworth only to fire both before Christmas prohibits further knee-jerkery not to mention costs the club can’t afford.
Amorim has at least packed off Antony and Rashford. Both seem happy at Sevilla and Aston Villa, which might persuade someone to make an offer in the summer, a transfer window that will determine Amorim’s chances of succeeding.
Arguably the most important signings of Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign were Peter Schmeichel, a brick wall of a goalkeeper, and Eric Cantona, an indomitable striker who galvanised the whole. Both had big personalities and the self-belief of Napoleon. And both would walk into Amorim’s team.
If he has any chance of succeeding at United he needs a reliable man between the posts to keep the ball out and another at the opposite end to stick ‘em in. It really is that simple. Of course Fergie had Roy Keane, Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister too, but it was the arrival of Schmeichel and Cantona 18 months apart that made the difference and transformed Ferguson from a good coach into a great one.
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