It was not that long ago that Sir Jim Ratcliffe, with the super yachts of Monaco’s Port Hercule visible over his shoulder, set out the timeline on which he would judge Ruben Amorim.
“Ruben, he needs to demonstrate that he’s a great coach over three years,” he told The Times Business Podcast in October. Coach, that is. Not manager.
So he gets three years, his interviewer asked. “Yep, that’s where I would be. Three years, because football’s not overnight.”
By three years, did he mean three years? Or was it really 18 months — the length of time remaining on Amorim’s initial two-and-a-half-year contract?
Whatever the true timeframe was, never mind three years — not even three months have passed since that interview and Amorim has already been sacked.
Ratcliffe was right that success in football is not achieved overnight, but failure is not tolerated for very long, either. And there is no disputing the paucity of Amorim’s record when you look at the numbers: he has won only 24 of his 63 games in charge, drawing another 18 and losing 21. His win ratio is the lowest of any permanent United manager during the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era — a lowly 38 per cent. In the Premier League alone, that sinks further to 32 per cent.
During 14 months in charge, he won 15 top-flight games. A record of 1.24 points per game in the league is worse than Erik ten Hag, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Jose Mourinho, Louis van Gaal, David Moyes and even interim Ralf Rangnick.
That record already called the wisdom of Ratcliffe’s three-year timescale into question, but events at Carrington blew it to pieces over the past week, before Amorim’s remarks at Elland Road on Sunday left his superiors with little choice but to change course.
If Amorim’s appointment was a mistake on the part of United’s decision-makers, at least it was a conventional one.
This time, they did not extend their dismissed manager’s contract first, as they did with Ten Hag in the summer of 2024. Amorim also spent longer in the job than he did waiting to start work, unlike former sporting director Dan Ashworth, who spent five months on gardening leave at Newcastle United and slightly less than that in his post at Old Trafford before being dismissed in December 2024.
Dan Ashworth proved another costly mistake by INEOS (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
But in all seriousness, in each of those cases, Ratcliffe and the wider hierarchy could reasonably argue that they were dealing with the legacy of their predecessors: deliberating the future of a manager they did not appoint, while hiring into an executive structure that should already have been in place.
The choice of Amorim was, by contrast, all on INEOS. And as sudden, explosive and dramatic as his departure was, Amorim’s struggles still cast doubt on the hierarchy’s judgment.
Amorim’s adherence to a 3-4-3 system was no secret. It was one reason why United looked elsewhere when assessing potential successors to Ten Hag at the end of the 2023-24 season.
Jason Wilcox, United’s director of football, whose relationship with Amorim soured over the past week, had reservations about the formation working at United and in the Premier League. Yet only five months later, Amorim was the choice, with chief executive Omar Berrada influential in the process leading to his appointment.
The subsequent switch from a back four to a back three recalled Ratcliffe’s comments at INEOS’ Knightsbridge headquarters upon the completion of his minority investment in February 2024.
“We’ll decide that style, plus the CEO, sporting director, probably the recruitment guys, what the style of football is and that will be the Manchester United style of football, and the coach will have to play that style,” he insisted.
Which is all well and good, until that leadership decides the tactical approach of the coach they appointed is no longer the tactical approach they want. Ratcliffe also promised United would not “oscillate” between contrasting philosophies from manager to manager.
“Otherwise, you’re changing everything all the time, you change your coach, you’ve got the wrong squad — we won’t do that,” he insisted. “In modern football, you need to decide what’s your path and stick to your path.”
Time will tell whether United’s next permanent manager is also wedded to a back-three system. If not, Amorim might smirk and ask who stuck more closely to their path after all.
He compromised too, though, by experimenting with a back four in the 1-0 win over Newcastle United on Boxing Day, only to revert to his trusted 3-4-3 against Wolves last week. He was also, famously, uncertain about joining mid-season from Sporting CP until it was made clear that the invitation to become United’s head coach was a one-time offer.
Yet that was a consequence of INEOS’ handling of Ten Hag’s protracted dismissal. Amorim’s breakdown in relations with the hierarchy may have happened regardless, but last season casts a shadow over his aforementioned record. Results had improved this term — United are level on points with Chelsea in fifth place, the likely cut-off for Champions League qualification — even if many would say they still did not meet expectations.
The early indications are that United’s hierarchy have learned from that mistake and will wait until the summer to appoint Amorim’s permanent successor, with Darren Fletcher set to take charge of Wednesday’s trip to Burnley. Maybe that way, from next season onwards, the legacy of INEOS’ early mistakes can be minimised. There will be a clean slate.
Except, it will not be an entirely clean slate. INEOS has still made plenty of unpopular decisions away from the pitch which colour perceptions.
The United hierarchy would argue that the hundreds of redundancies, ticket price increases and various other cost-cutting, revenue-raising measures have been necessary, whatever damage some would argue they have had on United’s culture. Such measures would be, if not justified, then not as aggravating to staff and supporters if they were followed up with results on the pitch.
Those results remain elusive, though, which is partly why Amorim has lost his job far sooner than Ratcliffe said he might. And if a little more than a year is enough to judge a manager’s performance, then two years should be enough to make assessments on an ownership, too.
Ratcliffe would reasonably counter that his every move has been scrutinised from the first day his feet were under the table. His occasional interviews usually include at least one line comparing press coverage of United’s ownership to his old school reports. Scrutiny is in abundance in football.
Patience, however, is a commodity that not even petrochemicals billionaires can afford; a luxury not even those parked up in Port Hercule can fall back upon. Amorim’s failure is Ratcliffe and the hierarchy’s error, one that their next permanent appointment must put right.