Ruben Amorim sacked | Do we commiserate or congratulate Man United?

By Kehinde-Hassan Afolabi

Manchester United, like Chelsea, has parted company with the manager they wanted to build a dynasty with, returning to the phase they are known for, even though they desperately wanted a change.

Not long ago, majority shareholder Sir Jim Ratcliffe confirmed that Manchester United is committed to a three-year period for Ruben Amorim to prove his caliber, mirroring the time allowed for Arteta to overhaul Arsenal.

“Ruben needs to demonstrate he is a great coach over three years. That’s where I would be—three years. Because football is not an overnight success.

You also look at [Mikel] Arteta at Arsenal. He had a miserable time over the first couple of years. We have to be patient. We have a long-term plan.”

The INEOS chairman insisted that the club would not be swayed by external pressure or media criticism, adding that: “You can’t run a club like Manchester United on knee-jerk reactions to some journalist who goes off on one every week.”

However, the patient ran out after Ruben Amorim’s explosive interview in the wake of their one-all draw with Leeds United at Elland Road on Sunday.

“I saw Amorim’s last two press conferences and I was thinking, ‘Something isn’t right here’ said Manchester United legend, Rio Ferdinand in an interview after Amorim’s exit.

This guy, one of his best traits and most likeable things has been his ability to be quite punchy in his press conferences, upbeat, jovial. The last two that he did looked depressing.” he concluded.

Like Enzo Maresca’s scenarios at Chelsea, there have been ongoing rifts behind the scenes, but unlike the Italian who left in pursuit of greener pastures, it is Manchester United who pushed their manager to shove.

Why did Man United and Ruben Amorim part ways?

Another manager gone, making a sixth permanent managers hired and fired since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson in the summer of 2013, yet Manchester United’s search for a new identity about to get another start.

Ruben Amorim’s philosophy never really made him the right guy, and his time at the club has been defined by this fact, with the management having their differences with the Portuguese down to petty discuss, including the team’s formation.

However, despite looking out of place for majority of his 14 month stint, Ruben Amorim left Manchester United a better team that be found them back in November 2024, and that left us with the question, if we should commiserate or congratulate the club in the wake of his exit.

While this decision may serve beneficial purposes, it also meant the club have sacked another 14 months commitment, which now amounts into 12 and a half year wasted on finding the right man to take the baton from Sir Alex, and now they resume an endless quest for another successor.

It was just a few months ago when Sir Jim voiced support for Ruben Amorim, so what has gone wrong in this little time that has landed both parties at a junction where their association can no longer be possible. We take a look at five of them below.

1. Failed promise by the club

The cause of his departure will easily be narrowed down to his controversial interview, where he stated “I came here to be the manager of Manchester United, not to be the coach.”

It appeared the internal struggles at the club centered around his not being given the authority promised. He continued to say that:

“Every department, the scouting department, the sports director, needs to do their job. I will do my mine for 18 months and then we move on.”

Back in the summer, Ruben Amorim was vocal about the team’s desperate need for a central midfielder, but the club failed to get him one, which would be very unusual if he had the authority of a manager.

From then on, it is clear that the Portuguese was serving as a head coach, even though officially, he was a manager. Such a limitation in authority does not hurt like the fact that you’ve been lied to by your employer.

2. Conflicted tactical ideas

Ruben Amorim left Sporting CP in November 2024 as one of the most sought-after managers due to his work at the club, where he turned them into a dominant force in domestic competitions and became more consistent on the continent.

It is unacceptable that Manchester United was trying to coerce him into a tactical change, when they knew this was his style before his appointment. It further begs the question of whether they knew anything about the man they employed.

Ruben Amorim has always been a proud proponent of the 3-4-2-1, and while this, like every other formation, has its flaws, it made United secure some of their biggest wins under the Portuguese, and was the reason he lasted 14 months.

There were moments when his ideas made him look clueless, and when you’ll doubt whether his style is sustainable in the long term, but to conclude that he hasn’t gotten Manchester United anywhere will be unfair.

They might not be where they want to be today, but they definitely have leveled up from where they started with him.

3. Lack of consistency in performance

This was the biggest Manchester United issue under Ruben Amorim. The team outclassed Arsenal on the opening weekend at Old Trafford, only to follow it with a disappointing draw at Fulham and an EFL Cup exit at the hands of fourth division Grimsby Town.

During the period where they beat Chelsea, Sunderland, Liverpool, and Brighton, they did manage to lose to Brentford, while they ended it with draws against Forest and Spurs in games they should have won.

While the management would love to blame these on Ruben Amorim, the former Benfica midfielder could also point to the fact that he did not have the right players, after all, he did request a central midfielder in the summer, and it never arrived.

According to Opta, Rúben Amorim used 25 different starting central defensive partnerships during his time in the Premier League – eight more than any other side in that time.

Unfortunately for the Portuguese, the above include Manuel Ugarte, who at some point went on a seven-game losing streak when starting in the Premier League, before Boxing Day’s win over Newcastle United.

The team’s inconsistency saw the club fail to move into the top four when the chance presented itself on multiple occasions; a sight that had become boring to the management. It was too boring not to trigger clashes with the head coach. Or rather, the Manager.

4. Poorly timed injuries. Quite unfortunate

Despite their differences, the hierarchy can still see the progress under Ruben Amorim, and continued to condone all the inconsistencies, until the team peaked between September and October.

Manchester United pushed closer to the top of the table, with just four points separating them from first place at some point, but form soon dwindled after injuries to some of their center-backs, which led to more opportunities for young Ayden Heaven.

The departure of top attackers, Bryan Mbeumo and Amad Diallo to the African Cup of Nations hurt their form, which was not made any better by further injuries to Bruno Fernandes, Kobbie Mainoo, and Mason Mount.

Manchester United are not used to playing without their Portuguese captain. Since his arrival six years ago in 2020, Bruno Fernandes has played over 300 Man United games, missing just three games due to injuries.

In the meeting with Leeds United that ended up being Ruben Amorim’s final game, United had eight first-team regulars missing, including some players who could have directly taken the places of others in the team.

5. Unproductive academy

In mid-December 2025, Ruben Amorim made a series of comments regarding Manchester United’s academy players that sparked significant friction with the youth setup and supporters.

The fallout occurred in two stages. In the initial set of comments, which came during a press conference ahead of a match, the visit of Bournemouth, Amorim singled out three academy prospects: Harry Amass, Chido Obi-Martin, and Toby Collyer.

He suggested that the trio had been promoted to the first team too early under previous management, but are no longer with the team because they failed to impress and earn a regular place or even squad player status.

When asked about the players’ social media responses a few days later before the trip to Aston Villa, Amorim did not back down, instead labeling the behavior as a symptom of a deeper cultural issue.

“I think it is the feeling of entitlement that we have in our club. Sometimes strong words is not bad words, sometimes difficult moments is not the bad things for the kids.”

In the Villa game, he gave debuts to Jack Fletcher and Shea Lacey. Bendito Mantato followed in the meeting with Wolves, while three others made the bench in the draw with Leeds United.

United has a lot of players in the Academy; unfortunately, none of them are different makers. The Portuguese explained that Kobbie Mainoo’s main rival for shirt was Bruno Fernandes, and it is impossible to rest the captain for anyone.

This drew criticism, but in truth, there is no way anyone would opt for the young English midfielder when Fernandes is in contention.

The ‘Mikel Arteta’ obsession

While it is good to envy what Arsenal and Mikel Arteta have done in the past six years, not understanding the context around their process will only complicate the process to replicate it.

Everyone wants a Mikel Arteta, but everyone can not be Arsenal; you can not have a Mikel Arteta if you do not become Arsenal.

Before the Spaniard’s project became acceptable to the fans, they called him all sorts of names and demanded that the management sack him. However, the board remained committed to its plans.

Even when they hit rock bottom and suffered humiliating losses, or they wavered in their belief, it never crossed their minds to part company with the manager, because they wanted to see what would become of the team at the end of their five-year agreement.

Even Arteta, chose to remain focused on the job and only deal with whatever the management has to say, paying no attention to the pressure, criticisms, and curses from the fans. He continued, until he won them over with his idea.

Managers and management at both Chelsea and Man United failed at these. The managers were not as patient as Mikel, who waited and eventually won the trust of the board, earning his inclusion in other important decisions at the club.

For the management, they appear more concerned about the opinions of the public, but then they have failed not only Ruben Amorim but also the club, if they truly appointed Ruben Amorim as manager, but restricted him to just a head coach.

Ruben Amorim’s Man United legacy

With just 31.9 percent, Ruben Amorim has the worst win rate of any Manchester United manager in the Premier League since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013, and unfortunately for him, this is what history will reference.

Performances were getting better, especially before the injuries and departure of players to AFCON. He was on course to move into the top four, an achievement that has eluded the club since the start of the 2023-24 season.

He could have gone on to make up for the poor numbers emanating from his difficult start to the club, but we’ll never know.

Do we commiserate or congratulate Man United?

After spending over £260 millions in just one window for the manager, and sacking him four months later, do we commiserate or congratulate Manchester United for their decisions?

This turn of events now leaves them with another decision: whether to go for a high-profile manager or start another project under an upcoming one, and it gets more complicated because they’ve tried both and failed.

This will be the bigger question, and the amount already invested will influence a potential decision, because they have signed win-now players, and their managerial choice has to follow a similar pattern.

Amorim’s sacking is a tough choice to make, but this only means they fall further years behind their top rivals in the Premier League, especially those who have their houses in order and are only focused on the hunt for success.

What next for Manchester United?

Darren Fletcher has been appointed as interim coach until the near future, as they continue to weigh their options on whom to succeed Ruben Amorim on a permanent basis.

The hard difficult part of having to sack a manager is looking for the right successor, especially at Man United, where they appeared to be consistent in making the wrong choices since the end of their golden era under Sir Alex.

David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, Erik Ten Hag, and now Ruben Amorim. Maybe the problem is more about the management, than it is about the managers.

Sir Jim Ratcliff and his administration planned to do things differently compared to the Glazzers, and maybe Ruben Amorim was never the right choice, but their decision to appoint him in the first place has so far made of them is another version, yet closer to the Glazzers.

Nevertheless, United has fumbled their latest Shepard, and they’ll never know if he holds the key to restoration of the good old days so desperately craved, because Rubem Amorim left not when his well ran dry, but at the very moment he began to pour.