Kobbie Mainoo has quickly become an example of how things can turn around in football, and Owen Hargreaves has made a bold claim about the player to expose Ruben Amorim.
Ruben Amorim’s justification for not playing Kobbie Mainoo is looking sillier by the day, as the player has just bossed the midfield of two best teams in England.
That is after being extremely rusty, since the start against Man City was his first in the league all season.
What are your expectations for Kobbie Mainoo now Ruben Amorim has been fired?
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This has led Owen Hargreaves to make a bold claim that Mainoo has done something no other player could in world football.
Photo by Andrew Kearns – CameraSport via Getty ImagesOwen Hargreaves’ bold Kobbie Mainoo claim
The biggest thing that works against Amorim with this whole Mainoo situation is that nobody needed the benefit of hindsight to conclude that he was missing the point.
Even when Amorim was in charge and winning games, however rarely he did so, the Mainoo question was justifiable and sensible.
It’s one thing to make Mainoo earn his minutes by being a rotational player, but Amorim was point-blank in his refusal to use him at all, with the player having to wait for Michael Carrick to give him his first league start.
Considering how the whole season had gone till the City game, Mainoo had a strong argument to fail against City due to his rustiness.
However, he put in back-to-back amazing displays against the two best teams in England, prompting Hargreaves to make a bold claim.
He said: “I can’t think of another player who could not play for the whole season and then go in against City, go in against Arsenal and play like that, there’s not one.
“He didn’t play because of the formation, just put him with the right people, Casemiro, Kobbie, and Bruno Fernandes, that’s a great midfield. Not the quickest, but they’re close together.”
Hargreaves’ claim exposes Ruben Amorim
As Hargreaves notes, Mainoo didn’t play under Amorim because of the formation, which is a weak excuse even if the formation was giving positive results, which it wasn’t.
With Ruben Amorim SACKED, where will Manchester United finish in 2025/26?
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You can’t just get 11 players perfect for your system who are always available and put in perfect displays, just so you can win a game or two of football.
At that stage, the club simply doesn’t need a manager, because the role of a manager lies in making the squad more than the sum of its parts.
Amorim sidelining Mainoo, not because of his professionalism but simply because he didn’t “fit” in a system that was already failing, is damning on him as a manager.
It was damning before Mainoo’s performance against City and Arsenal, and it is indefensible after those two games.
If anything, as Hargreaves said, Mainoo doing what he’s done against City and Arsenal despite coming in from the cold further exposes Amorim.
His sacking might not have been triggered for the right reasons, but sacking him was certainly the correct decision.
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