Can Manchester United escape the vicious rinse-and-repeat manager cycle?

SINGAPORE – Here we go, again. A new year, but the same Manchester United.

The Red Devils are back in an all too familiar place, staring at the aftermath of another failed reset.

On Jan 5, United’s official channels posted a 106-word statement.

It bore a different name, but a similar script.

A manager dismissed, a brief note of thanks, best wishes for the future and an announcement that an interim solution – Darren Fletcher – has been put in place.

After 14 months, it was

Ruben Amorim’s last day at the storied club

.

For United fans, it was Groundhog Day.

They have now gone through 10 managers, short-term and permanent, since Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013.

This time, the dismissal did not come as a complete surprise.

Less than 24 hours before, Amorim delivered what will now be remembered as his most startling press conference, where he urged the scouting department and sporting director to “do their jobs”.

This latest upheaval has again left United fans and others wondering: Can the Red Devils get out of this rinse-and-repeat hell?

Unconvincing results leave little choice

Regardless of the press conference drama, most pundits agreed that Amorim’s departure was inevitable as they felt he was out of his depth.

After being appointed in November 2024, he could lead United to only a 15th-placed finish in the English Premier League and they lost to fellow league strugglers Tottenham Hotspur (17th that season) in the Europa League final.

In the ongoing season, United suffered a shock and embarrassing elimination in the second round of the League Cup by fourth-tier Grimsby Town after a penalty shoot-out defeat.

The numbers do not lie. With a record of 24 wins, 18 draws and 21 losses in 63 games, the 40-year-old has the lowest win rate of 38.1 per cent of the last six permanent United bosses.

Dutchman Louis van Gaal was the next closest with a 52.4 winning percentage.

Amorim also ranks at the bottom for points per Premier League game, with 1.23.

Former United captain Gary Neville admitted he was surprised by the timing of the decision but not the call to remove Amorim from his post.

“When a manager is sacked, it’s a poor reflection on everybody. It means it has not worked,” he told Sky Sports News.

Former United striker Michael Owen said that on X that “United’s board must be secretly happy that he has given them the perfect opportunity to part ways”.

Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher pulled no punches as he described Amorim as a “barely competent” Premier League manager, adding that “he’s not good enough to be Manchester United’s manager”.

However, former United goalkeeper Mark Bosnich had a differing view as he felt the club had made progress this season under Amorim.

He pointed to how they are three points off the top four and a guaranteed place in the UEFA Champions League, the target for this season.

Bosnich, a 53-year-old former Australian international, told The Straits Times: “I really am dumbfounded.

“From a results’ perspective, he’s in sixth position compared to 15th the season before. That is progress.”

United’s leadership are culpable too

Ultimately, whether it was due to results, the tepid football – which saw United fans boo the team off the pitch at the interval, and at full time during the 1-1 draw with bottom side Wolverhampton Wanderers on Dec 30 – or the public display of frustration, the axe has fallen.

But much of the responsibility for the current state of affairs rests with United’s top decision-makers, namely

Ineos chairman and club minority owner Jim Ratcliffe

, director of football Jason Wilcox and chief executive Omar Berrada.

In a sardonic piece for The Guardian, Jonathan Liew wrote: “If coaches were once chefs, they are now more akin to Deliveroo drivers: not really responsible for the food, but still ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or leaks out of the box.”

For all Amorim’s unwanted records, his dismissal was reportedly sparked mainly by him butting heads with Wilcox, who had issues with the coach’s back-three system, despite hiring him with the knowledge that he is “the 3-4-3 guy” with no chance of compromise.

Wilcox was not helped by comments he made in September, when he talked about the difficulties he faced after ending his playing career.

He said: “I am a coach at heart. I am a coach inside even though I know I have a different job now.

“That is a strength in my role but it also causes me a bit of a problem because I always want to interfere in what the managers are doing.”

It is clear that he has interfered this time, and the problems at United run deeper than the system used on the pitch.

Amorim may be the fall guy now but, if United do not address their structural issues, they risk spiralling further from the top where they think they still belong.

Angered by how things have unfolded, Bosnich said that there needs to be more transparency about the role of the manager or head coach.

He questioned: “Is the manager just there to coach the team, because he (Amorim) alluded to that in that press conference, or is it the people behind the scenes making the decisions in terms of how he’s going to play?

“Fans want transparency, to know what is going on at the moment.”

Former United midfielder Owen Hargreaves added: “Everybody wants the best for the football club, but the problem is when you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen, a lot of people have different opinions.

“Ruben was employed to do his job and, if he wants to play a certain way, you guys picked him to do that and let him get on with it.”

Bosnich also felt that it was unnecessary for minority owner Ratcliffe and Berrada to chime in with football opinions, along with Wilcox, without “clear lines of delineation of responsibility”.

He added: “It’s okay to have a sporting director, whose job should be to look at things like the medium term, the long term and player recruitment.

“But it should be done in conjunction with the person that you’ve appointed (as manager), because he needs results immediately.

“The managers (or head coaches) are the ones putting their name and reputation on the line.

“So they’ve got to be the one who has the final say on the overwhelming majority of things.

“There may be times when the sporting director says, ‘After talking to the big boss, we can’t afford that player, so you’re going to have to give me other options’.

“But it’s not up to him (the sporting director) to go and sign a player and say to the manager, ‘Here’s the player, make him better and play him’, without the manager knowing anything.

“It’s quite evident after what’s happened in the last week that there are things going on behind the scenes which are going against the grain of the football club achieving the best possible results.”

For those keeping count, Amorim’s departure marks the third major misstep by Ratcliffe and his leadership team since the British billionaire became co-owner and assumed control of football operations from the Glazer family in February 2024.

First, it was former sporting director Dan Ashworth’s departure in December 2024, just five months after he took up the role at Old Trafford.

Before that, United sacked ten Hag in October, just four months after extending the Dutchman’s contract.

But the most damning is the sacking of Amorim, given that just a few months ago, Ratcliffe said that the Portuguese coach had three years to prove himself despite a tough start at United, adding that the club would not be drawn into “knee-jerk reactions”.

Along with the latest, contradictory move, there has been little to suggest he can deliver on his desire to restore a club he admitted “has become mediocre” to their former glory.

For Ratcliffe to take United back towards their former perch, clarity of vision is essential and so is the courage to stay the course when the going gets tough.

Who is next in the hot seat?

Other than fixing themselves internally, there remains the task of finding Amorim’s long-term replacement. The talk is that United are set to appoint an interim coach until the end of the season.

In doing so, United may be writing off another season.

How invested will players be in a coach they know is temporary? If short-term success follows, does the hierarchy fall back into the same trap of rewarding sentiment over strategy, as it did with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in 2019?

Bosnich noted that, with United looking to go with a caretaker option until the end of the season, it appears that they could be interested in someone who will be involved at the World Cup.

Thomas Tuchel, contracted to England till the end of the World Cup, and Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann are thought to be among the top candidates for a permanent role.

But, if a new head coach is appointed only after the World Cup concludes on July 26, a little more than a month before the new season begins, preparation time will be severely limited.

That would leave minimal scope for shaping pre-season, influencing recruitment or properly embedding tactical ideas, once again forcing United into reactive rather than strategic planning.

Bosnich, who noted that Fletcher will be “absolutely fine as an interim coach”, added that the possible appointments of Solskjaer and Michael Carrick would also be acceptable, though he is rooting for former England manager Gareth Southgate.

Noting that European qualification is within grasp, he said: “If the chance comes that Southgate is available to take it now, I would snap it up. I am biased because he’s a friend and ex-teammate.

“I would go for him based on what he did with England, taking them from basically an all-time low to semi-final, quarter-final in consecutive World Cups and two European finals in a job that is highly pressurised.

“He manages very well up and down. He’s very astute and he also has a very good way with people, and I think that’s very important.”

Neville, meanwhile, said “the experiments have got to stop… United must take risks and have the courage to play attacking, aggressive football”, arguing that the club need a manager aligned with their traditional style of attacking football and not a stop-gap or mismatched coach.

Regardless of who they appoint, Bosnich stressed that United are accountable and answerable not just to shareholders, but also supporters.

He added: “Fans can do without football, but football cannot do without its fans. Regardless of dividends and share price, your ultimate measurement is the satisfaction of your fans. Because if that stops, then there is a big problem.”