Manchester United need to stick with Amorim, ‘shut up, take our medicine and be patient’
There is talk of a Manchester United ‘reset’ and needing to be patient under Ruben Amorim, with praise and apologies for Spurs hero Ange Postecoglou.
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Spurs and the Europa
I am a 50 year old, Australian born, lifelong Spurs supporter. When I say lifelong, I mean it. I’m named for Martin Chivers, Steve Perryman and Pat Jennings. My dad was a season ticket holder before my parents moved here in the 70s. One of my most prized possessions is a congratulatory card to my parents after my birth, signed by the first team at the time.
I remember being woken at midnight to watch the 81 and 82 FA Cup finals and talking to my dad after the 1991 final, his last.
When I finally moved to England for a few years in 2001, the first thing I did was get a ticket to White Hart Lane (3-0 vs Coventry). I was at the Lane to see us beaten 3-0 by Chelsea, took my now wife to see the godawful loss to Sam Allardyce’s Bolton just after Bill Nick died. I was even there for the league cup collapse to 10 man Manchester City.
This is all why Wednesday night/Thursday morning meant so much, even from so far away. It’s the first trophy of my 15 year old son’s life (by his age, we had 3, including the 84 UEFA cup) and watching it with him made me think about my own father and how much he’d have loved to see it.
Luckily for my son, as I grew up on the Central Coast I made the Mariners my A-League team and he’s seen 3 grand final wins (including last year when we made it there) and another grand final win for the women’s team last Sunday (yes – some of us do watch women’s football).
The Europa league final was awful. The league form, even before putting all of the eggs in the EL basket, inexcusable.
I don’t care. I don’t much like Ange, but he’s right. This was for the true believers. I’m raising a glass and toasting this team and all of the Spurs supporters who share the joy with me.
Finally – thank you Nick Montgomery. Suspended for the 2013 Grand Final win. Head coach for the 2023 GF win and now Ange’s assistant for the EL win.
Marty
MORE SPURS EUROPA LEAGUE FINAL REACTION
👉 Tottenham board’s new stance on Ange Postecoglou future as sack probability given
👉 Report reveals Spurs squad’s ‘expectation’ on Postecoglou sack with PL boss ‘eyed’
Wow.. what a few days.
As a Spurs fan, even at the best of times, you know you’re gonna get punched in the mouth every now and again. This season, it felt like being a few rounds deep with Muhammad Ali most weeks.
Despite it all, for Ange Postecoglou and that group of players to persist and persevere, and push through all the negativity, the crises of confidence, the injuries, the noise, and to come out the other side holding their first trophy in nearly 20 years is inspiring.
I only got to catch up on F365 mailboxes today, so I got a nice little chuckle at all the panicked rationalizing from other fans: It’s only the Europa League, two terrible teams, worst final ever, Don’t deserve Champions League, tallest dwarf, etc. Seeing opposition fans horrified that they can no longer ‘banter’ Spurs over being trophyless, and scrambling to find new sticks to beat Spurs it is delightful. You keep doing whatever you need to do guys, we’ll just keep watching the clips of Sonny lifting the cup on repeat. (Although credit to David Tickner, who I’ve criticised for his anti-Spurs takes before, for his magnanimous article celebrating Spurs and Ange!)
But really I wanted to write in about Ange – and to say to Ange I’m sorry I ever doubted.
I was a huge Ange advocate since the beginning. He wasn’t a mercenary like Jose or Conte, temporarily gracing lowly Spurs with his presence. He was a man with passion and a vision. He was going to make Spurs winners again. He was going to rebuild the culture at the club. He was going to make fans and players believe. And he was going to do it playing exciting, attacking football.
The attacking, exciting football part has been a bit of a problem. It’s glorious when it’s good, but when it’s been bad, it’s been awful. Dizzyingly high defensive lines, gaps in positions, and a dreadful injury crisis meant we were cannon fodder for teams who could sit back and wait to counterattack on us. 20+ league defeats later, and even I, a big Ange-truther, was beginning to say this project had run its course.
He was ridiculed in the press. He’s been hounded out of his job in every interview. F365 among others have kept a regularly refreshed list of his potential successors live on the site since October. When we were dumped out of the league cup and FA cup, journalists were quick to smugly ask him if he was still going to win something in his second season.
And he did.
For him to take all that flack for himself, to bear all the brunt of the criticism, so that the players could focus on the job to be done is incredible. He’s led them to success for the first time in 20 years. Something Conte, Pochettino, Mourinho, Redknapp never did. He always wins things in his second season, mate.
But what now? I’m conflicted.
The league form was truly awful, and while it might be absolved, given the Europa success, it could never be acceptable again. My head says maybe the best thing is for Ange to leave now as a hero, who brought this team back to the winners circle, and calls it a promise kept. Spurs move on, and bring in a Thomas Frank or someone to hopefully build on this momentum, but take us in a slightly new, more pragmatic direction. Fresh start.
But I think the heart says different. Ange says his work is not yet done. And the players seem to agree. Despite everything, the likes of Van de Ven, Maddison, Kulusevski, Bissouma, Vicario and others have come to bat for Ange – “We want to win this for him”. For him to keep the belief of a dressing room after a season like that is incredible. After an achievement like Wednesday, that bond will be even stronger. If I thought Ange could adapt his style, and adopt elements of the pragmatic style that won him his last few European fixtures, and if the chairman could support him in the transfer market, then I think the option that would make me happiest is to see us press ahead with Big Ange!
Either way, huge congrats to Ange – Spurs fans will never forget the success he’s brought. I’ll always be wishing for his success, in our dugout, or another.
Andy, Spurs, Eire
Ange stays and Ruben goes
Thanks to a flight delay, I got to watch the first 30 minutes of the Europa League final, but had to shut down before the goal. I wasn’t terribly disappointed to turn it off, because it was awful. When I landed, I learned the result and saw the goal credited to Brennan Johnson, but my son had commented in the EPL Discord group we share with my friends and their friends that it was a Shaw OG. That’s just funnier, and I would prefer to believe it.
With many apologies to Tottenham supporters — you’ve my sincere congratulations on your Europa League win, and I’m quite jelly, because it beats our pot sideways — I generally appreciate F365’s evident editorial pleasure in regarding Spurs as Spursy and openly endorsing in advance the funniest possible Europa League Final narrative vis-à-vis Spurs. I hope you’ll understand: it’s an objectively funny narrative precisely because it’s silly.
So, Spurs haven’t won a trophy in 17 years? Cry me a river. That’s far more success than Newcastle United or Crystal Palace could boast in 2024, so it’s hard to feel very bad about having that particular laugh. Especially when it’s more or less true; Spurs’ league form has been shocking.
But I agree with Tickner and several Mailbox contributors that the cup win changes things for Ange Postecoglou. Unless you want to consider the possibility that he’s the Kwisatz Haderach, you have to treat his prophecy as merely a demonstrable trend. This is the fifth consecutive job in which he’s won a trophy in his second season, and trophies aren’t available every year for an international coach. I’ve little doubt he left the Australia job precisely because he knew he couldn’t win them a World Cup, asked himself what succeeding would look like, and didn’t like the answer.
Big Ange may just be what he appears to be at this moment: a remarkably adaptable coach for whom short-term success is very likely, but is only now beginning his first attempt at sustained success at the highest level. I’m not aware of how much input he has in transfers, but I’d call most of the bigger outlays attributed to him moderately successful; extremely successful, if the goal Levy set was a trophy in year two.
Spurs supporters may have a different perspective, but I have a lifetime of experience with volatile team owners in the US, and it’s hard for me to imagine Daniel Levy firing Ange right now. It would alienate many (though I suspect not all) supporters, and trophies are what an owner looks for in a coach or manager. Prize money, and the guarantee of more prize money next year.
And if Levy does push the eject button, Ange will likely have a wealth of opportunities and a very happy agent. He’s in the catbird seat right now, as we inexplicably say in the Southeastern US.
Also: given our cup history over my lifetime, I can almost never find it in myself to be disappointed with a Manchester United loss. The stats seem to suggest they should have won, and Amorim is accused of mismanagement in 16 Conclusions. Indeed, one wonders if a Jim Ratcliffe-influenced board might just snatch at his offer to decline compensation if sacked.
A financial path forward for ManU is tough to chart. Among the academy graduates, Mainoo seems to be the most saleable asset, and his value is debatable at the moment and is most likely greatest as a homegrown member of the squad. Abandoning the 343 (or however you want to characterize Amorim’s system) and hiring a manager to make better use of the talent already present — Mason Mount might qualify, for example — while the rebuild proceeds in a more natural direction might be a good idea.
What Manchester United needs is flexibility, and Amorim may not be able to provide that on the available transfer budget. Or willing to provide it at all. On the other hand, they won’t have the bother of Europe next season.
Chris C, Toon Army DC (Ambivalent over the playoff final. LALAS or derbies? Both are wonderful.)
Over the United fatalism
What did we learn out of the Europa League final that we didn’t already know? Honest question…
A United team which has been poor for six-odd months was poor again and lost. The overall depth and quality of a team which is shoddy in defence, lacks bite and control in midfield, and has next-to-no goals in it was, you guessed it, shoddy in defence, lacked bite and control in midfield and drew a blank.
Spurs, to their credit, were able to be slightly less poor on the night and unconvincingly accounted for the worst United side in 50 years.
Well done.
But can we put a pin in the Manchester United fatalism? No United fan is happy with where the Club sits, how it’s being managed and how it’s performing – but maybe, just maybe, this is the opportunity to properly, actually reset the Club has needed for years.
No papering over the cracks, no playing dress-ups at the big table of European football, no fixtures and competitions we’re nowhere near good enough to properly compete in for now…
This is the chance to start a build we should’ve undertaken post-Jose. A proper, top-to-bottom rebuild. The open-heart surgery Rangnick diagnosed.
Easier said than done, sure, and a far from linear process… but a chance to move beyond the quick fix, short term vanity signings which have plagued us for years and look for players who a/ fit a profile and method of play and b/ are not signing to pump up their pensions.
And before anyone starts, if rival fans seriously think there’s no allure to signing for and becoming a Manchester United star, you’re kidding yourself. So let’s find the players for whom that means something.
Come in, be a part of something from the ground up and be a reason this Club turns things around. It’s Manchester United – something which has always meant something and still does, no matter how loudly opposition fans protest it doesn’t.
And on the fatalism… worst case for Manchester United is results get so dire the Glazers sell up and f**k off. Which would be a magnificent result – maybe the single worst result for the Club’s rivals, to be honest.
It’s pretty easy to support your team when the going is good. For all the disappointments in recent times they’ve given me plenty to cheer about across the journey… I now hope they can begin the slow march back towards contention at home and abroad.
Sean Peter-Budge, Melbourne, Australia
Suck it up
Get a grip.
This is my message to my fellow Man Utd fans.
We are in the ‘find out’ phase of a decade and a half of chronic incompetence; mistakes compounded by mistakes; a relentless pursuit of a sunken cost fallacy brought on by our arrogance, impatience and an overbearing weight of expectation.
We have chopped and changed managers and gameplans every 3yrs never allowing for any true synergy between manager and squad. We have signed players based on reputation and commercial viability with leveraged transfer fees that we still owe around £300m on. We have doled out massive, long term contracts to panic buys & ‘marquee’ signings which has had the knock on effect of massively inflating wages throughout the squad. Basically, think of any clichéd football mistake and we have made it repeatedly. Of course we’re shite!
Our situation right now has been inevitable for a long time. What we need to do now is shut up, take our medicine and be patient. If you need somewhere to focus your frustration and anger about it all, the Glazers should be the target. INEOS haven’t been perfect (SJR’s petty cuts towards the ordinary folk at the club are pointless besides demonstrating that he is a monumental tw*t) but they have been sound so far with transfers; Yoro, Dorgu, Ugarte, Zirkzee and Heaven have all looked good so far.
The last thing we need to do is sack Amorim. We need a period of continuity where we have a plan and we stick to it. There are too many mitigating factors to confidently say that he is the problem.
343 looks like the incoming paradigm so remoulding our squad to fit it is a sound, forward thinking plan even if we do eventually move on from Amorim.
Amorim being pragmatic and adapting to the players we have would just be repeating Erik Ten Hag’s mistake. Form would improve then inevitably tank as he tries to transition to his style. He’d get sacked anyway, the next manager would inherit another Frankenstein squad and we’ll be back to square one. Better to just push ahead with his ideas and get the most painful phase out the way first. We will improve when he has more suitable players.
Being out of Europe gives us an opportunity to cull the squad this summer. If we set our target for next season to a top 10 finish, we can be more bold with game time for academy players and aim lower (with a much broader pool) for signings with an emphasis on suitability for the system.
We are in a reset phase where our expectations need to be adjusted to give us time & space to lay new foundations.
There is reason for optimism but stop expecting it all to happen immediately. The boat has sailed on any hope of a quick fix. We now need to be methodical and precise.
And for those of us who grew up in the glory days, now is the time to prove for once and for all that we are not glory hunters.
Tom, Tooting
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
I read recently to my dismay and bitter disappointment that Amorim said he did not intend to change anything. If this is true, it would the most irresponsible and uncaring statement a Head Coach can make.
Under Amorim’s reign, Man United have set and broken all sorts of unwanted, undesired and humiliating records. Most United fans are hurting and, for the Head Coach to say he would not change anything, is more than an insult.
Results and performances don’t lie. Clearly, his system, tactics, mass rotation, team selection and substitutions have, by and large, failed. In my profession, as it is in all other professions and areas of human endeavour, if the situation is retrogressing, changes are identified and made. I don’t belong to the school of thought which advocates the unnecessary sacking of coaches but, if Amorim’s publicly professed contention is not to make changes, then he must leave. No changes would lead to more pain next season and that is not acceptable.
I urge all United fans and everyone who has interest in our beloved club to impress upon Amorim to make effective changes. Changes constitute a ‘sini qua non’ for success.
Professor (Dr) David Achanfuo Yeboah
Compare and contrast
Good morning
Please compare Liverpool and ManU’s deroute and ways of tackling them during their respective transitions. What errors have the two clubs made? What good things have they done? Why was the transition in Liverpool ultimately a success, while it doesn’t look too good for ManU? Where have ManU repeated the errors made by LFC? And why haven’t they learned anything from history?
And probably many more questions.
Thanks
Kind regards
Michael from Denmark – LFC-fan, but curious about the similarities between the two mastodons and their situations (both Hicks/Gilette and the Glazers are nincompoops!).