Manchester United fans have sung Ruben Amorim’s name at every game since the Portuguese took charge of their club last November. Outsiders were baffled. United lost so many games but the support remained steadfast, defiance overriding disappointment.
Until Wednesday.
The away end which had chanted for him as recently as Sunday at Fulham remained silent. No way were they going to celebrate a manager in charge of a team losing to a fourth-tier side. Grimsby was grim indeed: one of the worst results in United’s entire history, elimination from a competition that took on more importance given United’s absence from Europe this season. Support for United’s head coach is plummeting. He needed wins and he’s not getting them.
“The away end booing Onana when he touched the ball after his mistake was a new low,” messaged one appalled mate of mine from that tiny away end. “So much for the hardcore fans being different. The abuse thrown at Dalot, too. Not one rendition for Amorim. Everyone moaning about the system. It took 11 days of the season to go pear-shaped.”
Other friends there reckoned the prevailing mood was apathy more than anger — which you could argue is worse. And to think it was supposed to be a trip to a new ground for every red — that is apart from 86-year-old Digger who went in 1948 on a coach with his dad.
“I just remember the fishing boats,” Digger told me on Sunday. He was the only United fan at both games.
On Wednesday, Grimsby Town tweeted: ‘You’ve Just Been Slapped By The Fish’.
Defeat by Grimsby was one of the worst results in Man United’s history (Clive Rose/Getty Images)
Setting the seal on a great evening, United fans returning to Manchester were held for up to two hours after an accident on the A180 road just outside Grimsby.
The Town were worthy of their historic triumph. United? They were a shambles, but where does a humiliated team go from here?
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face,” is Mike Tyson’s famous line, based the military adage that “no plan survives the first contact with the enemy”. And it highlights the importance of adaptability in the face of adversity, of being able to change your plans.
How apt those words are when applied to United right now, the biggest criticism of Amorim being his rigid tactical system.
A few weeks ago, I asked Matthijs de Ligt if he had faith in his manager’s tactical system. “Of course,” he replied.
Well, he would say that. It would have been headline news if he hadn’t. But he justified his reply by referring to the current state of play in European football. “Because I think football is not so much about formation anymore,” he said. “Even if you look at all the teams who play 4-3-3, let’s say 4-3-3, they build up in a three or they defend in the four.
“So in the end the formation is just the name from football fans who want to see it in a certain way, but football is so fluid and dynamic that the system changes all the time in the game. It’s important to really find a way to find the connection between the players.” Fair enough. However, those connections take time and United don’t have it since the media, fans and owners all demand quick changes.
Many people claim to have the answers regarding Manchester United. Amorim thought so too but now he is in the position where his answers are being put to the test. It’s a monster of a job at a monster of a club.
Think of other huge clubs, say Inter Milan. They had 5,000 fans at a 2019 friendly in Singapore. United brought the other 50,000. Little wonder Andre Onana was stunned by the pressures and scrutiny after he joined. Most players are. It’s a factor in why so many talents see their confidence battered. The vast support can also work against the club when things are going badly — as they are now. Again.
United fans knew it had to get worse before it gets better. They liked what they saw with Amorim, that brutal honesty, but were not impressed by him hiding during penalties by the Humber Estuary on Wednesday. He has benefitted from that the fact that fans are now five cycles into this happening. Every new manager says the same, every one leaves amid acrimony and poor results, every single one says they left the club in a better place than when they arrived. They can’t all be right, can they?
Yet football, while based on the tangibles of results and league tables, is so subjective. What is clear is that United has not been working and that’s why the club’s culture has been reset several times and continues to be. Maybe it will work — I certainly hope so, unlike many who feed off negative Manchester United stories — but maybe not.
The appetite for yet another reset, another coach, diminishes with each ultimately unsuccessful appointment. And even fans who once demanded change after a bad month or two think twice since they know it’s not just on one man. David Moyes or Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Jose Mourinho or the Dutch of Louis Van Gaal and Erik ten Hag, all suffered.
You see the job affecting their mental and physical health. You see how they look better six months after leaving Old Trafford. Their families are happier that they no longer work at United, it’s not worth the grief. I’ve stayed in touch with most and met Moyes for a coffee last month in Chicago. I asked him about how he looked back at his time at United.
“With bits of disappointment,” he said. “It was one of the biggest clubs in the world, I had the opportunity and I felt as if I didn’t step it up, but I think there were a lot of mitigating circumstances and history would agree to that.”
It would, but he’s also taking some blame himself. He, like other managers, who have the excuse that they have come from outside the country, get caught out by the size. And yet United aren’t the only huge club in the world.
The pre-season optimism has vanished and the season isn’t yet out of August — and we have been here before. There are scary parallels with 2014-15.
A good pre-season in the US, an opening day home defeat, a 1-1 away draw in the second game, an away defeat to a lower league club in the League Cup. That triggered a rash of transfer activity. We’re likely to see a lot of it until the window ends, though most of it will be outgoings since United need money after a significant summer spend — signings that were greeted by fans.
In another coincidence, 2014-15, the third league game of the season was against Burnley (a draw), as it is this Saturday for United. United fans will fill Old Trafford and get behind their team. The coach still has sufficient support in the tank, it is early days. The 2014-15 season showed there can be a turn. United finished fourth then. How long will Amorim have to stage a similar recovery?
(Photo: Nigel French/PA Images via Getty Images)
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