Fourteenth in the Premier League, out of the League Cup and with three upcoming fixtures against top-five teams, Manchester United’s domestic season could effectively be over in January.
The worst-case scenario is defeats to Newcastle and Liverpool leave United teetering above the relegation zone and their FA Cup defence ends after 90 minutes at Arsenal.
Ruben Amorim said last month it would be fair to judge him definitively after two years. He has not been in post for two months and the prospect of his sacking was raised in the press room at Molineux on Boxing Day.
Amorim is complicit in the mess but it is on the Ineos brains trust that underestimated football and the never-ending malaise at United. As long as United are stuck in their rut, it can be traced back to the illogical decision not to change manager in the summer.
It is reasonable to question why the hierarchy replaced Erik ten Hag with a coach who operates in a system that jars with the United players. Or rather, that the United players jar with. Whatever the formation, no United side should perform as limply as they did at Wolves.
Amorim, at 39, is dynamic, charismatic and intense, the modern profile of coach that United needed. He was considered to replace Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool and Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. Any attempt to pin the club’s continued decline on a coach who touched down in Manchester on November 11 is nonsensical.
