Six reasons Man Utd should sack Ruben Amorim amid reign riddled with errors, mismanagement

While all good managers should have a vision and a philosophy, adapting to your players' strengths and trying to make the most of them is part of the job. Amorim, though, has refused to stray from his 3-4-3 formation and he has made his stubbornness his unique selling point. In his first press conference he proudly declared "there is no second way", and the drudge of terrible results since has not made him reassess his methods. Last week he claimed that not even the Pope could convince him to change his mind about how his team should play.

He has had more than enough time for his players to get used to the formation and his style, including a whole pre-season campaign and now full weeks of training sessions due to a lack of European football. But his message is not getting through and Amorim is resembling a captain who is refusing to change direction as his ship heads towards an iceberg.

Amorim has repeatedly stated that the only way for United to change their way of playing is to get rid of him. And he is giving them no other option.

The suspension received by Casemiro for getting sent off against Chelsea gave Amorim a choice between Kobbie Mainoo and Manuel Ugarte. Yet again, he ignored the homegrown midfielder who many fans saw as the club's future and picked the Uruguayan, who has none of the technical ability of the England international.

That Amorim refused to give Mainoo his first league start of the season was hardly surprising. He has never rated a player who is among the most talented in the squad, largely because he doesn't fit into his rigid system. Mainoo knows this, which is why he asked for a loan move towards the end of the transfer window. 

That he requested a loan rather than a permanent move says it all: he does not want to leave United, but he sees little future for him while Amorim is in charge. And when he made the request he likely assumed that the coach would not be sticking around for much longer anyway.

Mainoo is far from the only talented player who Amorim has alienated. He forced Marcus Rashford out of the club and then did the same with Alejandro Garnacho. He also gave up on Rasmus Hojlund, even though the striker was willing to fight for his place. The club and coach need to part ways before he drives away any more stars.

Amorim revealed the day before the Brentford game that all week he had been stressing to his players the importance of building momentum. The win over Chelsea gave the team the chance to win back-to-back league games for the first time under their manager, and for the first time since May 2024.

"It was everywhere," he said. "I think if we as a team don’t understand the momentum now, we have a big problem. So for me since we started the first training session we started talking about that. We need to understand the opportunity we have to win the next game [and build momentum]. The responsibility is on us. We need the sense of urgency that we need to win, no matter what."

But despite him hammering the message home, it did not get through. And Amorim is right. United have a massive problem if they cannot string two wins together for more than a year. Without any momentum there is firstly no prospect of picking enough points to get close to securing European football. Worst of all, though, there can be no hope of any lasting improvement.

Amorim has said on a few occasions that his system is not the problem and in certain instances you have to agree with him. It is not a system problem which has led to Andre Onana and Altay Bayindir gifting the opposition goals, sometimes directly from corners. Harry Maguire cannot blame being in a back three for playing Igor Thiago onside at Brentford or for allowing Erling Haaland to destroy him in a race in the Manchester derby.

Nor can Bruno Fernandes' failure to score penalties at Brentford and Fulham be linked back to the coach's tactics. And yet, worrying things keep on happening on Amorim's watch and he has to take responsibility for them. 

"The goals today, we worked on during the week. That is frustrating," he said. "I see the guys in training. I feel sometimes in the games, when things are really hard, they are not the same. But that is the pressure of the club." 

There might be an element of truth to players' caving in under the weight of expectation which comes with representing United. But it is the coach's job to help them cope. And Amorim is not succeeding on that front.

The defeat at Brentford left Amorim with 34 points from his 33 Premier League matches in charge. It is a truly shocking return after almost a year in charge and it averages out at 1.03 points per game, which would leave United with 39 points over the course of a full season. Blackpool and Birmingham both went down on 39 points in 2010-11, a year in which United won the league. 

And while the standard at the bottom of the table has fallen in recent years, and United would likely not succumb to the drop with their current points rate, they would be spending most of the season nervously looking over their shoulder.

United supporters envisaged that Amorim would "turn the Reds around" in their song dedicated to him but Manchester City fans have come up with a new version which tweaks that line to say "the Reds are going down". And during their 5-1 win over Burnley on Saturday, the Cityzens supporters also chanted: "You're going down with United". Unless United change course by changing their manager, their rivals' mocking words might actually turn into reality.

While Amorim is far from the first manager to struggle to turn United around, he has to go down as one of the most negative coaches the club has had in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era. Not in terms of tactics, but in terms of his rhetoric.

He claimed that he really believed in the players in that first hopeful press conference last November but it only took a few weeks for him to lose all hope. He called his side "the worst team in the history of Manchester United" after defeat to Brighton last January and he has continued to lavish his players with criticism.

Yes, his press conferences and interviews are very engaging as he says things that many managers are afraid to. But his words have not galvanised his players. Instead, they have only served to further erode confidence in his project. He has talked about the weight of the club's history dragging his players down but he has made things worse with a lot of his stinging remarks.

After the historic elimination by Grimsby he said "the players spoke really loud" and seemed to be hinting he could walk away when he announced "something has to change and you cannot change 22 players". He has also admitted that he contemplated leaving last February. He has since changed his tune and repeated at Brentford that he would not walk away. So if the club want to change the mood around Old Trafford and Carrington and restore some positivity, they will have to make him leave.