BILBAO — I need help. I am running out of new ways to explain that Manchester United are not very good.
A summer with a thesaurus always at hand awaits. Without the money and prestige of Champions League football, Ruben Amorim will be unable to complete his pivotal squad overhaul. More of the same listlessness awaits next season. And beyond.
The Old Trafford Ministry of Truth will keep telling you otherwise. The numbers, however, tell a truer story.
Amorim was handed the most difficult task in football in November – restoring a fallen giant to its former glories mid-season with only rusting, falling-apart tools to go about his work.
Some improved parts are on the way – Matheus Cunha is almost there, with Liam Delap reportedly still keen, even without European football on offer. But who else will want to join?
A generation of talent is not old enough to remember United being anything like the force they were in the Sir Alex Ferguson epoch, and if there are other Premier League rivals in contention, transfer targets will almost certainly look elsewhere.
Amorim has again cast doubt on his future (Photo: Getty)A disastrous season had the most fitting end. Manchester United are hurtling back in the opposite direction from where they are supposed to be heading. Unless Amorim is some kind of footballing alchemist, United’s immediate future is bleak. More defeats. More redundancies. More misery.
“I’m always open, if the board and the fans feel that I am not the right guy, I will go the next day without any conversation about compensation,” Amorim insisted.
“But I will not quit. I am really confident in my job. As you can see, I will not change nothing in how I do things.”
Someone has to. As former World Cup winner turned acclaimed pundit and writer Jorge Valdano once said of English teams in European football, the quality on show in a mistake-ridden Bilbao final was like a “shit hanging from a stick”. United contributing the most excrement.
Pre-match, the contrast in demeanour was stark. While Ange Postecoglou cut an even more prickly figure than normal, biting back at suggestions he could be labelled a “clown” should Tottenham fail to end their dreadful season on a high, the beaming smile never left the faces of Amorim and Bruno Fernandes for long, as they quipped and joked their way through their media responsibilities.
But on the pitch, both assumed their psychologically fragile, physically inept Premier League selves for a first-half that was every inch 16th versus 17th. While the lack of fluidity and cohesion hardly made for gripping viewing, one thing remained to keep those within the stadium glued to every wayward pass straight out of play – the encounter reeked of desperation.
United’s performance was the perfect microcosm of their entire season. Rasmus Hojlund was providing as much threat as a pampered poodle up front.
Fernandes, in a deeper role, simply could not be everywhere at once, as much as his teammates wanted him to be, wide players got into dangerous positions only to get the final passes glaringly wrong, while sluggish defending, in key moments, ultimately became their undoing.
Amorim normally spends his league matches staring at the floor, slowly shaking his head at what this United team have become, questioning his life choices.
On the big occasion, the Portuguese was animated in the extreme. The Europa League has been his side’s sanctuary this season, shelter from the domestic storm they are engulfed by week in, week out.
Confidence was the buzz word coming out of everyone’s mouths. Amorim, time and again, insisted he was not worried. But against anything better than mediocrity, and United have no right to feel any assurance whatsoever.
Other than Micky van de Ven’s superb goal-line clearance and a fine Guglielmo Vicario save, United never looked like finding an equaliser, despite utilising every attacking option they had, from a fully fit squad.
Twenty defeats in one season, more than in any single campaign in 51 years. Sixteen goalless games in one term. Thirty one games in which they have conceded first – more than any other Premier League side in all competitions.
And that is how the might of Manchester United have fallen. And, as big-spending rivals get better, stealing all the best talent, it is only going to get worse.
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