Ruben Amorim only has himself to blame: Dismal results and dogmatic approach cost him the Man Utd job, not the Red Devils' board

Amorim has had no shortage of critics during his time in charge of United, be it rival pundits such as Jamie Carragher or Red Devils' legends Wayne Rooney, Gary Neville and Paul Scholes. But he always felt the support of the board, despite presiding over the club's lowest league finish in 51 years and failing to qualify for Europe for the first time in 11 years after losing the Europa League final to a very poor Tottenham team.

In October, Sir Jim Ratcliffe said he would be happy to give Amorim three years to "demonstrate he is a good coach", comparing him to Mikel Arteta and how the Gunners gave the Spanish coach time to get things right after a difficult first three seasons. 

Previously in June, chief executive Omar Berrada had compared Amorim to Pep Guardiola, whom he had worked with at Manchester City, as the Portuguese, "stuck to his principles and given what he’d won, he had an enormous amount of credit in the bank."

"He was allowed that first year to be below-par by his standards. The club backed him that summer, the team started winning and created this winning cycle that lasted until this season," Berrada added on Guardiola's City tenure.

The top brass were the only allies Amorim could rely on, which is why it was so surprising to see him point the finger at them at Elland Road. 

Immediately after Amorim was sacked, United sources were keen to point out that he had unwavering support from everyone within the club and insisted that there had been no power struggles or ultimatums. But there was clearly unease between the coach and sporting director Wilcox, who was believed to have encouraged him to move away from the 3-4-2-1 shape he had used in almost every game. 

Amorim's strict adherence to his beloved formation has proved to be his undoing, as many predicted it would. It held the team back on the pitch and it ultimately led to a rift between him and the club's hierarchy. 

A source who had previously worked with Amorim was not surprised when he saw the coach lash out in the press conference, as Amorim does not like to be questioned or have anyone interfere with his choices for the team. At Sporting CP, he always had full trust from the board and absolute power over team selection and new signings, but it was becoming clear that was no longer the case at United.

United sources claim that Amorim has been sacked as the club had not seen enough signs of evolution or progress. Leaving aside for a second the misguided decision the Red Devils made in appointing Amorim in the middle of last season when he wanted to wait until the summer, it is difficult to argue against their reasoning.

In his 14 months in charge, Amorim won just 24 out of 63 matches, leaving him with a win percentage of just 38.7. It is comfortably the worst record of any manager in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era, with Louis van Gaal, Erik ten Hag, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Jose Mourinho and David Moyes all winning at least 52% of their games. 

It is the worst record of any United coach since Frank O'Farrell in the early 1970s. And unlike Moyes, who at least had the excuse of being given just £27 million to spend on Marouane Fellaini in his first transfer window and arrived just after chief executive David Gill had departed alongside Ferguson, Amorim cannot say he was not backed in the transfer market or allowed to reshape the squad. 

Within two months of Amorim arriving, United signed Patrick Dorgu to boost their wing-back options. More significantly, the new boss was allowed to bomb Marcus Rashford out of the squad and then the club, an episode which has become more embarrassing as the striker has rebuilt his career first at Aston Villa and now at Barcelona, also returning to the England squad.

Over the summer, United shelled out £216m on new signings, including ready-made Premier League players such as Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo, a new goalkeeper in Senne Lammens and the highly-coveted Benjamin Sesko, who was also targeted by Newcastle and Arsenal and was the most expensive signing of the lot at £74m. 

That made United the fifth-biggest spenders in the Premier League and the third-highest net spenders, only behind Arsenal and Liverpool, a fact that United sources were also keen to point out when Amorim was let go. They also stressed that he was fully aligned with the plan to prioritise signing three forwards over a midfielder last summer. 

Having been given a much more dangerous attack, United also had a crucial advantage over all the other top clubs they were competing with this season: they have no European football to worry about. They 'earned' even more time on the training ground and even fewer games to drain players' energy when they were knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Grimsby Town, the club's first-ever defeat to a fourth-division side. 

But United did not use it to their advantage. They sit in sixth place in the Premier League table after 20 games, with every team above them playing European football.

It is really a miracle that United are still within striking distance of Champions League football given their recent run of results. They have won just three of their last 11 fixtures, only facing one top-five rival in that period in Aston Villa, who beat them. They played five of the teams in the bottom six, failing to beat all of them, including a Wolves side who at the time had the worst record in English top-flight history and a dismal West Ham who were rolled over by Wolves at the weekend. 

Their home form has been most infuriating. They have taken six points from their last five matches at Old Trafford, losing against 10-man Everton before drawing with each Wolves, West Ham and Bournemouth. Their one win in that period, against Newcastle, was slightly fortunate too, with the Magpies dominating the second half.

Results matter more than anything and Amorim did not get enough good ones. But beyond that, his leadership of the club has been poor in many other aspects. He has been dismissive of the club's academy, hounding out Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho while barely playing Kobbie Mainoo. He also made less than complimentary comments about youngsters such as Chido Obi and Harry Amass, which eroded a lot of his support among fans of a club that prides itself on trusting homegrown players.

Then there were the the brutal comments Amorim made which undermined the squad. He sensationally claimed he would rather field his goalkeeping coach Jorge Vital, who is in his 60s, instead of Rashford while also describing his squad as "maybe the worst team in the history of Manchester United". 

Christian Eriksen recently described how badly that went down with the players: "I don’t think that helped the players at all. Some stuff you can say inside and it’s 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 don’t think that helped at all, no. Then if he’s right or wrong, whatever, but I think for us it was a bit of like, ‘Oh, here we go again. Another headline'."

There were too many headlines during Amorim's era and they were rarely good ones. Even though 14 months seems like a short amount of time, many fans and pundits believe he should have been removed far earlier. The Europa League final defeat to Tottenham - who sacked Ange Postecoglou despite winning a first trophy in 17 years - would have been an obvious moment to change course. The defeat at Brentford in September - after which GOALcalled for him to be sacked - was another.

Amorim clung on thanks to the board's faith in him, but when he pointed the finger back at them, there was no place to hide.