Amorim £13.5m sack incoming with 'shaman' touted as next Man Utd manager

Surely there is nobody – not even Ruben Amorim – who thinks that Ruben Amorim should not be sacked by Manchester United.

But who next? Is Gareth Southgate actually the right answer to that question?

And for those wondering, your man Newcastle v Arsenal mails will be along soon. Send your opinions to theeditor@football365.com

Amorim must be sacked; he is rubbish

If Sir Alex was right, and you learn more from defeats than you do from victories, is Amorim the most knowledgeable manager around?

No. He’s rubbish. 17 losses in 33 games. Get him gone. There’s literally no more words left to say on him, and every defence is full of obvious holes. Just like the one he sets up.

Badwolf

Premier League table since Ruben Amorim was appointed:

What Man Utd need is a shaman like Klopp

I had largely fallen out of love with football but the decision of my 10-year-old son to start supporting Man Utd has dragged me back in. Suffice it to say, it has been miserable watching him suffer. All he has known is this dross.

What is striking is how, no matter what Utd try, they fail. They have tried a Fergie mould (Moyes), a legend of the game (Van Gaal), the winning bastard (Mourinho), the good vibes guy (Solskjaer), methodical tacticians (Rangnick and Ten Hag) and now young hotshot (Amorim). And they’ve also thrown literal billions of pounds at it. But nothing seems to work.

It is, of course, reminiscent of Liverpool’s fall from grace in the 90s and their long years in the wilderness. It’s not quite the same and less money was involved but still the parallel is reasonable. No matter what Liverpool tried it just didn’t seem to work. More than that they seemed “unlucky”. How else to explain Gerrard’s slip in 2015 that ended up giving away the one decent chance they’d had at the title in 25 years? The poor man had only delivered a rousing speech to his teammates admonishing them specifically not to let their title lead slip. He meant it figuratively but the universe took it literally and threw him on his arse. It was sheer banter just like it is now with Utd. No matter who they buy, no matter how well they play (it happens occasionally), they still fall on their arse. They seem, as it were, “cursed”.

For Liverpool, though, that curse was lifted and I think often about how that happened.

There was, of course, Fenway taking over and introducing sabermetrics that resulted in a wonderful recruitment programme. A well-run club is no doubt important but that does not lift curses. For that you need a shaman. And so, Liverpool hired one.

Jurgen Klopp was the most remarkable football figure I had ever seen. Tall, loud, a grin like a madman, an exuberance like a bear high on honey, he dominated every room or stadium he walked into. I realise now that when he famously forced the Liverpool team to salute the fans after a miserable draw against West Brom early in his tenure he was actually performing an exorcism. He was grabbing the club by the scruff of the neck and shaking out all the trauma, all the scars and all the suffering so they could start again. He transfused belief into the players and the fans through sheer personality. While other managers were devising gameplans he was performing rituals. The success came later but that West Brom game was when the magic started.

And that now is what Man Utd need. They don’t need a tactician or an organiser. They need a shaman like Klopp. They need a talismanic figure who can root out the negativity that has infected the club to its core and instil in everyone the belief needed to grow and return to success. They need someone who can perform spiritual surgery on their very soul.

Unfortunately, these people are in short supply. You don’t learn this stuff on your UEFA Pro Licence course and Klopp himself is out of the question even though he’s exactly what Utd need. My head tells me Glasner should be appointed when Amorim is given the boot but another name draws my attention.

Gareth Southgate is not Klopp. He is as uninspiring a prospect now as he was when he somehow got the England job. And yet, he did work out (sort of). England got to two major finals and a World cup semi. He did something right even though that something didn’t appear to be tactical or organisational. Rather, he helped move England past something. They won a knockout penalty shootout. More than that, the players seemed…happy? They played with a freedom and verve, liberated seemingly from the psychological dungeon the national team had been locked in for several decades themselves. He even seemed “lucky”, with England apparently receiving favourable draws in tournaments.

In other words, despite not having anything like Klopp’s charisma or presence, Southgate dragged his team out of a psychological hole – a bigger one perhaps even than that inhabited by either Liverpool or Man Utd.

So, maybe, just maybe, despite every indication to the contrary, Southgate is exactly what Utd need right now.

Because I don’t see any other shaman out there.

Damian, Dublin

(I don’t even like Klopp)

READ: Who will be the next Man Utd manager if Ruben Amorim is sacked?

Is Amorim trying to get sacked?

At what stage do we look at Amorim and think… maybe he’s trying to get fired?

He has hinted more than once in press conferences that he may not be the right man for the job.

He is continually playing our best player in a position he can’t play, is showing no signs that he will be able to play and clearly hates playing.

He put Harry Maguire on Erling Haaland. A toddler could see that made no sense.

His in-game substitutions are useless if not of detriment to the team

He has Kobe on the bench, our one bit of hope… affecting his progress, reducing his value etc etc

The decisions he makes are not far off sabotage.

If I behaved like above in my job, I’d be sitting in front of HR with a couple of company lawyers sitting in for a chat.

On a completely unrelated subject… Ruben Amorim will receive 13.5 million pounds if he gets fired.

Boot him out the door now, no pay off and get the company lawyers involved.

Shz

Brentford > Manchester United

The usual clueless Man. U fans on here, “The worst Brentford team in years”, why bother posting factually incorrect rubbish, when the nearest you get to a game is watching one occasionally on TV. I was at the game and the funniest thing was Brentford fans chanting to Bryan Mbuemo, “ You should have stayed at a big club”

Russell Probert

Grab your balls

Derek from Dundalk mentioned Federico Chiesa’s reaction to scoring, to grab the ball out of the net and run it back to the middle. If a week is a long time in football then 11 years must be an eternity, but some people in South London have long memories. They also take that sort of thing personally.

Quite why anyone from Liverpool would even risk invoking the spirit of Crystanbul is an absolute mystery. Worryingly for Liverpool and their fans it suggests a concerning about of head loss.

Ed Quoththeraven

…Derek from Dundalk‘s email really serves to highlight the difference between some people.

I haven’t seen a single Liverpool rue Chiesa pulling the ball out of the net and in the moment it felt exactly right.

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