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1 day ago
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Ruben Amorim's toxic and unceremonious exit from Manchester United is yet another undignified chapter in the Old Trafford tenure of Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos.
Amorim left United's hierarchy with no option but to sack him after Sunday's Elland Road outburst, an ill-judged play from a combustible personality who was already on shifting sands.
It was directly aimed at those above him, a high-risk strategy that became the final blow in a battle Amorim was never going to win.
The cracks were wide and relationships fracturing as he spoke. Amorim's fighting talk after the 1-1 draw at Leeds United was simply the final act in the drama.
It is the latest very public example of how Ratcliffe and his cohorts have failed to grapple successfully with the giant, unwieldy beast that is Manchester United since he bought a 27.7% stake and started running football affairs in February 2024.
Billionaire Ratcliffe, like so many other hugely successful businessmen, has discovered operating a football club – especially one on the scale of Manchester United – is a different world to the one he had previously occupied.
United are no less dysfunctional now than they were on the day Ratcliffe walked in, then portrayed as the mega-rich saviour destined to clear the clouds of ill-feeling hanging over the club under the ownership of the Glazers.
The reality has proved different.
Put brutally, Ratcliffe and those working with him have got very little right, stumbling from one poor decision to another, leading to the dismissal of the 40-year-old Portuguese only 14 months after triggering a £9.25m release clause from his previous club Sporting of Lisbon.
This, of course, came hard on the heels of the shambles surrounding the sacking of his predecessor Erik ten Hag in October 2024, the Dutchman handed a contract extension and £200m in transfer funds on the basis of beating Manchester City in the FA Cup final, only for the folly of that decision to be confirmed when he was out only months later.
United's pay off to Ten Hag and his staff was £10.4m.
One of the men in on the face-to-face meeting at United's Carrington training complex in which Ten Hag discovered his fate was then sporting director Dan Ashworth.
And thereby hangs another tale of the mismanagement Ratcliffe has presided over.
Ashworth's glittering reputation as one of the game's shrewdest operators meant he was regarded as a prized, crucial acquisition but left in December 2024 after only five months at Old Trafford.
To underscore the shambolic nature of the situation, Ashworth actually spent as long on gardening leave waiting to join from Newcastle United as he did in post at Manchester United.
It was suggested Ashworth had been held responsible for Ten Hag staying, but another theory was that he wanted to target English managers such as Graham Potter and Sir Gareth Southgate rather than Amorim.
The cost of Ashworth's appointment, taking in compensation to Newcastle and his own pay-off, was revealed to be £4.1m.
For a club earning a reputation for savage cost-cutting under Ratcliffe, with many staff leaving among other "efficiencies", United were not just making mistakes, but making very expensive mistakes.
Ratcliffe admitted events surrounding Ten Hag and Ashworth were "errors", calling the latter's exit "a chemistry issue".
Amorim, when targeted by United, was regarded as one of European football's hottest coaching properties for his work in Portugal. He was on Liverpool's radar, but his fixation on a 3-4-3 system counted against him and they eventually turned – with Premier League title-winning success – to Arne Slot.
It was a strategic approach Amorim could not tear himself away from. The less charitable would call it inflexibility, a constant topic of debate that ultimately also played a part in his downfall.
He was also unproven at Premier League level, actually wanting to wait until last summer to take over with a clean slate. It was a case of "now or never" for Amorim when United came calling.
Amorim was a box office mix of headline-grabbing emotional outbursts and ruthless decision-making, which saw Marcus Rashford shipped off to Barcelona on loan and Alejandro Garnacho sold to Chelsea.
The treatment of 20-year-old academy product Kobbie Mainoo was another permanent sub-plot to Amorim's reign.
Mainoo, the gifted midfielder who started England's Euro 2024 final defeat against Spain in Berlin, has not started a Premier League game this season and has only figured for a total of 212 minutes.
It has been a dramatic fall from grace for one of United's most celebrated recent home-grown talents. He may now hope for a fresh start under Amorim's successor.
United did reach the Europa League final last season, losing a desperately poor game to Tottenham Hotspur, but Amorim's lack of impact could be measured by an embarrassing Premier League placing of 15th.
The latest Old Trafford upheaval comes after Ratcliffe told BBC sports editor Dan Roan in March: "I think Ruben is an outstanding young manager. I really do. He's an excellent manager and I think he will be there for a long time."
And it also comes after Ratcliffe and United's top brass backed Amorim heavily in the transfer market last summer, spending £200m on a new attacking trident of Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko, the first two successes and the jury out on the third.
United's fans have been largely supportive of Amorim, as they usually are of their managers, but there is little doubt faith has been lost recently, especially after losing at home to 10-man Everton, then only drawing with relegation certainties Wolverhampton Wanderers at Old Trafford.
Tension has been building behind the scenes and, coupled with under-performance on the pitch, Ratcliffe, director of football Jason Wilcox and chief executive Omar Berrada now find themselves back at square one.
Darren Fletcher will take charge temporarily while the search starts for the next manager. Ratcliffe will hope it will be a figure who can help him at last achieve stability and a firm direction of travel.
This has now become a trust issue between Ratcliffe, the others who occupy Old Trafford's corridors of power and United's vast global fanbase.
It is the latest huge decision facing them– now they must prove decisively they are capable of getting a big one right.
