The scale of the job at Manchester United hasn’t been lost on Ruben Amorim since the day he started the job but every defeat just adds another perspective to it.
In that sense, the 0-3 defeat to Bournemouth would have been an eye-opener and as Gary Neville said, a “massive positive” for Ruben Amorim in another way.
Ruben Amorim is having to correct years of bad decisions and mismanagement while dealing with the pressure of getting a positive result every three days or so.
Unfortunately, one of those bad decisions was easily avoidable and could have made Amorim’s job much easier had it been taken when Erik ten Hag started the Man Utd manager job.
Instead, the Dutchman just added to the list of bad decisions taken before him and Amorim is now suffering from it.
Erik ten Hag’s first wrong call at Man Utd
The 2021/22 season had gone horribly wrong at Old Trafford, with the club going through three managers- Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Michael Carrick, and Ralf Rangnick.
Therefore, the situation Ten Hag walked into was quite similar to what Amorim inherited from the Dutchman this season.
Ten Hag’s arrival and his insistence on being his own man were treated with giddy optimism by Man Utd fans who thought the manager could do no wrong.
Along with Ralf Rangnick, who was set to start his consultant role with the club, United were set to have a dream team where Ten Hag coached the team and Rangnick would do what he did best- create the club off the pitch.
Unfortunately, that is not the way Ten Hag wanted to run his team. Rangnick was kept waiting with his dossier on the Man Utd squad, Ten Hag not even meeting him face-to-face before the German was sent packing.
United’s commitment to six months of “Manager Rangnick” was a nightmare because he wasn’t a manager very suited to the club. When the time came to use his best skillset, Ten Hag said, “No thank you”.
That’s the mistake Ruben Amorim is suffering from right now.
Ruben Amorim suffering from Erik ten Hag’s call
Fans were so excited by Rangnick moving to a consultancy role because the things he said as the manager were precisely what the fans thought of the team.
His comment on the squad needing “open heart surgery” is now a regular topic for discussions every time United lose a game and the fact that he worked with every player was a huge bonus because he could give unfiltered thoughts to the new manager.
Instead, Ten Hag ignored his findings. Anthony Martial, for instance, was marked out as a player who had no future at the club but Ten Hag kept him.
He departed last summer on a free transfer, making his last appearance for the club six months prior on December 9, 2023.
The massive squad rebuild that should have been undertaken under Ten Hag with the help of Rangnick was a can that was kicked down the road by a manager who just wanted to get results quickly in any way possible.
Amorim is now faced with a squad of players that has failed multiple managers and needs, in Rangnick’s words, an open heart surgery.
It could have started in 2022 but in true United fashion, they waited until things are untenable to act on it. It’s not left to Amorim and the new executive structure to do it. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about already!
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