{"id":229235,"date":"2026-01-05T21:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T21:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/229235\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T21:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T21:52:08","slug":"ruben-amorim-leaves-united-with-one-of-the-worst-stats-records-but-it-wasnt-why-he-was-sacked-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/229235\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruben Amorim leaves United with one of the worst stats records. But it wasn\u2019t why he was sacked \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ruben Amorim<\/a> leaves Manchester United<\/a> with one of the worst statistical records of any manager \u2013 sorry, head coach \u2013 in the history of the club. Even still, it wasn\u2019t the results that did him in so much as all the mad stuff he never could seem to stop saying.<\/p>\n

When did it first start to look like hiring Amorim was a mistake? <\/p>\n

The first red flags appeared in January last year, just two months after his arrival. United began that month with two of Amorim\u2019s best results, drawing 2-2 at Liverpool and then knocking Arsenal out of the FA Cup<\/a> at the Emirates. Green shoots! <\/p>\n

In the next game, they lost at home to Brighton, 3-1, and Amorim announced: \u201cWe are the worst team, probably, in the history of Manchester United.\u201d Obviously, this was a mad way to react to a defeat against a team that had beaten United quite regularly: seven times in the previous seven years. <\/p>\n

As United\u2019s many haters and enemies laughed long and loud, you wondered: who is this for? Is this extreme reaction meant to shock the players into a response? <\/p>\n

It seemed likely to backfire, and indeed it did. As Christian Eriksen<\/a>, a United player at the time, told the Sunday Times last week: \u201cYeah, that didn\u2019t help at all … Some stuff you can say inside and it\u2019s not too clever to say outside, to put extra pressure and put an extra label on the players who were already trying to do their best … I think for us it was a bit … \u2018Oh, here we go again. Another headline\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

A few days after that, Amorim responded to questions about Marcus Rashford\u2019s absence from the squad by saying that he\u2019d left Rashford out because he didn\u2019t like the way he\u2019d been training. He then added: \u201cYou can see we miss a bit of pace on the bench, but I\u2019d put Vital [his 63-year-old goalkeeping coach] in before a player who doesn\u2019t give the maximum every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amorim\u2019s message on this occasion was plainly the kind that would annoy the people at United who were, at that very moment, trying to find another club to take Rashford off their hands. The last thing they needed was the coach telling the world that the guy doesn\u2019t train properly. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ruben Amorim sacked by Manchester UnitedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But it was the gratuitously insulting Vital barb that brought you up short. Wait what if this guy is actually … kind of insane?<\/p>\n

\"RubenRuben Amorim speaks to Marcus Rashford during the UEFA Europa League match against FK Bodo\/Glimt in 2024. Photograph: Justin Setterfield\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

When United\u2019s struggling winger Antony joined Real Betis on loan and suddenly started scoring a few goals, Rio Ferdinand asked Amorim what he made of it. The answer: \u201cIf you play against any team in England, the physicality is there. If you don\u2019t have physicality you struggle a lot … It\u2019s a lot of factors, but I guarantee it\u2019s the physicality.\u201d <\/p>\n

He could easily have said something like, it\u2019s great to see Antony doing so well (unspoken subtext: and we look forward to selling this rejuvenated superstar at the end of his successful loan, maybe even to a Premier League club who can afford to give us back some of the giant transfer fee we wasted on him!)<\/p>\n

Instead, he had to point out that Antony didn\u2019t have the physicality to cut it in England \u2013 just in case anyone was wondering why Amorim himself had not managed to get such good performances out of Antony. You could call this honesty, but another term for it might be ego defence. It was all about him. <\/p>\n

There was more of that sort of thing in May, when United lost the Europa League final to Tottenham, a defeat that cost them more than \u00a3100 million (\u20ac115 million) in potential Champions League revenue. Mason Mount started that game and played poorly, while Alejandro Garnacho only came on as a sub having played the previous rounds. Asked why he\u2019d started Mount and not Garnacho, Amorim referred to a chance Garnacho had missed in the semi-final against Bilbao. \u201cDon\u2019t criticise me for not picking him, he\u2019s useless too\u201d was the apparent message.<\/p>\n

\"AlejandroAlejandro Garnacho of Manchester United scores the team’s first goal the Premier League match between Everton FC and Manchester United at Goodison Park in 2023. Photograph: Shaun Botterill\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

When Garnacho blew up at being left out, Amorim told him \u201cyou\u2019d better hope you have a good agent this summer\u201d and told United to get rid of him. A player the club had rated at \u00a360 million was sold to Chelsea for \u00a340 million. Chelsea got around the same fee from Milan for Christopher Nkunku, a lesser player than Garnacho \u2013 but then, Chelsea had never announced to the world that they were desperate to sell him. <\/p>\n

The best coaches build up their players and their clubs, Amorim was more often knocking his down. Rasmus Hojlund didn\u2019t think quickly enough, Kobbie Mainoo was slow, Patrick Dorgu was too anxious, United\u2019s Academy players were \u201centitled\u201d. Recently, he criticised the 18-year old full-back Harry Amass, even though the player was on loan at Sheffield Wednesday at the time.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Seven games where it went wrong for Ruben Amorim at Manchester UnitedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

While United\u2019s hierarchy must have been irritated by Amorim\u2019s habit of talking down the value of their players, they might have been happier with his bizarre comment on the rumours that they were about to launch a round of redundancies: \u201cPeople are losing their jobs so we have to acknowledge that the biggest problem is the football team. We spend the money. We are not winning. We are not in the Champions League so the revenues are not the same.\u201d <\/p>\n

An astonishing thing for the supposed leader of that football team to say. It was not the United players\u2019 fault that people were being made redundant. That was Sir Jim Ratcliffe\u2019s decision. <\/p>\n

The low point came in August, when United lost in the EFL Cup to Grimsby, the first time they had ever lost to a fourth-tier side. Amorim had been seen during the game fiddling with a little tactics board \u2013 was this really a moment that demanded a high-level tactical solution? \u2013 and then sitting in the dugout refusing to watch the penalty shoot-out. <\/p>\n

But worse than those images of ineffectuality was the hysterical post-match reaction in which he effectively accused the players of trying to get him the sack. \u201cMy players spoke really loud today,\u201d he kept saying, also hinting that he might negotiate an exit from the club during the forthcoming international window. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ken Early: Amorim and Maresca departures evidence of football\u2019s growing turf warsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

United must regret not taking that opportunity. The prospect of sacking Amorim after just nine months probably felt too embarrassing for them, especially for the CEO Omar Berrada, who had taken the initiative in hiring Amorim, even though the sporting director, Dan Ashworth, had advised against it. (Ashworth\u2019s failure to get with the programme resulted in his sacking the following month.)<\/p>\n

In the last few days, Amorim finally turned his guns from the players towards the bosses, meaning that it had become more embarrassing to keep him on than to sack him. Playing legend Darren Fletcher has agreed to serve as interim while United seek a permanent successor. The cosmic ballet goes on. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ruben Amorim leaves Manchester United with one of the worst statistical records of any manager \u2013 sorry, head…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,7520,917,919,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-229235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-ken-early","11":"tag-manchester-united","12":"tag-ruben-amorim","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}