When a club changes manager mid-season, it is a sign that something has gone drastically wrong. In the case of Ineos and Manchester United, this was true.
The 2023/24 season for Manchester United was terrible and resulted in an eighth-place finish in the Premier League.
However, Erik ten Hag masterminded a 2-1 win over Manchester City in the FA Cup final which likely gave him a stay of execution.
This saw Ineos arrive and implement a new sporting structure – which has already been disbanded with Dan Ashworth’s exit from the club.
But it all seemed like a wasted exercise to go to so much trouble backing the wrong horse as Ten Hag was sacked at the end of October.
Ineos sacked Ten Hag one month too late for Ruben Amorim to save the season
This season, it became clear very quickly that Ten Hag was not going to succeed at the club, with little to no improvement despite another heavy spending summer.
Despite this the club waited until October 28th, and then another three weeks before Ruben Amorim officially arrived and got to work.
Speaking to Sky Sports on Saturday ahead of the Manchester Derby, Amorim has revealed the shockingly low amount of time he has had to work with his team.
“Today we had 40 minutes of training with the whole group. In 20 days, we had 3 sessions together. It’s nothing. We’re going to have another 20 days with part of the team training and another recovering.
“Everything requires training so that it becomes natural, like the way of reacting, of coming back to defend.”
Last week Amorim asked for patience, and now we can see precisely why.
Manchester United paying the price for timing of managerial change
Due to this admission, we cannot help but look back on other points this season when Ten Hag really should have gone, which would have given Amorim time to work with his players before the hectic December period.
One moment was in late September when Spurs came to Old Trafford and demolished Ten Hag’s United.
The 3-0 defeat was labelled United’s worst performance of the century, and it was a moment which even the staunchest defenders of Ten Hag could not explain.
Sacking Ten Hag here would have given Amorim the best part of October and the entire international break in November to train on the training pitch.
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