{"id":396282,"date":"2026-01-06T23:23:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T23:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/396282\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T23:23:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T23:23:16","slug":"fantasy-premier-league-gameweek-21-qa-with-expert-gianni-buttice-send-us-your-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/396282\/","title":{"rendered":"Fantasy Premier League: Gameweek 21 Q&#038;A with expert Gianni Buttice &#8211; send us your questions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;Back to square one&#8217;published at 17:08 GMT<\/p>\n<p>17:08 GMT<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-8kvzjk-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4b3fbf4c-e4fd-4f04-a8f0-4e26af8f41e2.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Pat Nevin<br \/>Former footballer and presenter<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Amorim crouches on the touchline\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ddede5de-7076-4b73-a3d3-372303841634.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ruben Amorim&#8217;s latest disgruntled news conference was enough to push his employers over the edge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His cry that he was brought in &#8220;as a manager, not a coach&#8221; unsubtly underlined that executives were deciding what was needed on the pitch over and above him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">To their eyes, the hired help simply did not know his place and he had to go.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Amorim clearly thought additions had to be made to his squad this month and I have some sympathy with him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The major acquisitions Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo, Patrick Dorgu and Benjamin Sesko have had mixed success so far but they showed fight at Leeds &#8211; which is an improvement on recent years, even if it was still a work in progress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In 14 months, he shipped out seven first-team players from a failing squad, so although money was spent, the first-team group was still too small.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The bench at Elland Road had two 17-year-olds, three 18-year-olds and a 20-year-old with a grand total of one Premier League start between them.\u200c<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">By steering United to joint-fifth, he had shown he deserved the backing in the transfer window this month if he were to be kept on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Unfortunately, in the current climate, managers (and head coaches) are far lower down the food chain than they have been for decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Anything said that draws attention to those who make decisions above the manager but are not willing to take the flak when it goes wrong is seen as unacceptable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Most United fans will not weep at his departure, just at the state of a club that might just have shot itself in the foot once again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cloud.email.bbc.com\/FootballExtra_Newsletter_Signup\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up to read more from Pat Nevin in his Football Extra newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8216;Back to square one&#8217;published at 17:08 GMT 17:08 GMT Pat NevinFormer footballer and presenter Image source, Getty Images&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-396282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}