Man Utd suffer ‘more embarrassment’ as Amorim ‘impacted’ and ‘cash windfall’ imminent

It’s a rollercoaster of emotions for Manchester United today with ‘music to their ears’ here and ‘more embarrassment’ there, via news from Portugal that will have a devastating impact on Ruben Amorim and news of an imminent ‘cash windfall.

Maybe there are other football clubs out there, but we don’t know. And frankly we don’t want to know.

That’s right, for Mediawatch today it’s very much an acute case of This Is Manchester United Football Club We’re Talking About.

Because so is absolutely everyone else.

Impact driver

You’ll probably have already deduced that Mediawatch spends a frankly unhealthy, brain-meltingly large amount of its precious finite time on this planet perusing the clickiest and stupidest corners of the internet in order to bring you the world’s most reliably lunchtimey delivery of football-based snark.

And sometimes we get lured in by the non-football bits that pop up in and around the stories we’re actually studying for what is laughably still – for now, until AI gets its arse into gear – called work.

Last week, we saw one that we think might represent Reach achieving its final form. The headline ran thus:

Drivers told to place conkers in car in September or face £2,500 fines

Fellow regular travellers down Reach’s darkest holes will know that spurious potential motorist fines represent a rich seam, but this one undoubtedly stood out. These days, if you get in your car without putting a conker in it, you’ll be arrested and thrown in jail. These days.

When did this come in?

It all seems very unlikely. Unlikely because it is, very obviously, absolute bollocks. You are not about to be pulled over by the fuzz and asked to hand over your licence, registration and conkers.

What you can be fined for, as has quite literally always been the case, is driving a car while distracted. And do you know one thing that might in theory distract you while driving? Having a spider all crawling about in your car.

And do you know what, according to some old wives’ tale or other, keeps spiders away? That’s right: conkers.

From these diverse, unconnected ingredients, a stupid, clickbait headline is born. The piece was unclear on the potential distraction provided by having conkers bouncing around your car.

But that’s not important. What this is our incredibly long-winded way of saying is that no matter how bad Reach’s football headlines get, no matter how often we wail and whine and grind our teeth into dusty stumps at the ridiculousness of it all, the football lads really do have a long, long way to go before they are even in the same league as the utter guff filling the rest of these godforsaken hellsites.

Take this from the Mirror today, for instance.

Jose Mourinho ‘reaches agreement’ to return to ex-club with Ruben Amorim impacted

It’s a frustrating one, because you can absolutely see all the elements are there for some pure headline housery, but they just haven’t quite stuck the landing. You can absolutely see what’s being attempted here, with ‘Jose Mourinho’ and ‘ex-club’ and ‘Ruben Amorim’; can we mislead just enough people for just long enough into thinking this is in fact a Manchester United story?

But it’s just too clunky, isn’t it? You can just see too many of the moving parts, see too much of the machine at work. ‘Ruben Amorim impacted’ just doesn’t compellingly tie him to the story enough.

That actual story, for what it’s worth, is that Benfica – where Mourinho spent a memorable nine-match stint as boss all the way back in 2000 before falling out with the president in some world-class foreshadowing – would very much like to bring him back now after an suggestion that they might want Amorim if/when United sacked him. Impact.

Sweet music

We understand that Manchester United fans are likely quite desperate for literally any and all good news at this difficult time and thus ripe for exploitation, but this Mirror headline still feels a bit much.

What Senne Lammens did at training will be music to ears of Man Utd fans

Because what Lammens did that will be ‘music to ears of Man Utd fans’ – we will give some credit for a bit of elegant variation here on the usual bog-standard speaking of volumes or showing of true colours – is impress Tom Heaton enough for United’s veteran third-choice keeper to call the new guy ‘a really good lad’ with impressive ‘goalkeeping fundamentals’.

We would be far more interested in a story where Manchester United employee Tom Heaton declared new Manchester United employee Senne Lammens a ‘dreadful prick’ who ‘couldn’t catch the clap in a two-bob brothel’ to be honest.

MORE MAN UTD COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Man Utd: ‘Prime’ Amorim replacement revealed amid three reasons for verdict as deadline set
👉 Man Utd: ‘Eye-watering’ Amorim sack bill revealed as new ‘alarming issue’ among three ‘concerns’
👉 Man Utd star ‘pushed out’ by Amorim ‘could quit’ amid new ‘twist’ as Romano reveals clear stance

There’s a star man

But despite Lammens’ ‘good lad’ status, the humiliations continue to come thick and fast for United, with The Sun taking up the story.

Man Utd suffer more embarrassment as U21s side including first-team star and legend’s son KO’d by non-league Brackley

It’s not ideal, sure, but let’s not lose the run of ourselves either. This ‘more embarrassment’ result is of literally no relevance to the ongoing travails of the first team, even if we do start pretending Chido Obi – a 17-year-old who has played 200-odd minutes of first-team football for Manchester United and hasn’t appeared in a single first-team matchday squad this season – constitutes a ‘first-team star’.

Windfall hacks

The Manchester United rollercoaster really does never stop rolling. From the dizzy highs of their new goalkeeper being a ‘good lad’ to the crushing low of some children losing a football match to another massive crowning high, thanks to the Daily Star.

Man Utd ‘set for major cash windfall’ after announcement made

Hurrah! Who doesn’t love a major cash windfall? We know we do. Mediawatch would bloody love a major cash windfall, please and thank you.

But what’s this very specific Manchester United windfall, then? Where’s it come from?

Manchester United could be in for a hefty cash injection courtesy of a FIFA initiative.

Good old FIFA. Great bunch of lads, always said it. Chucking a bunch of money Man United’s way to help them out. Warms the cockles.

The 2026 World Cup, set to take place across the United States, Mexico and Canada, could see a host of United stars taking part. If they do, the club stands to gain a significant financial windfall.

Hmm. This is starting to sound like it another Manchester United story that isn’t really a Manchester United story at all, lads.

FIFA has confirmed that clubs will be entitled to a slice of the Club Benefits Programme (CBP), a scheme also rolled out for the 2022 World Cup. For that tournament, FIFA dished out a cool $209 million (£153m) to clubs who released their players to participate in the mid-season competition.

Clubs. Plural. Every one of the quite literally several football clubs who had players appearing at the World Cup. Not, it turns out, just for Man United because they are special.

It remains to be seen which United players will definitely be involved in the World Cup, with qualification still underway and squad announcements several months off.

And indeed, which tiny, insignificant little number of non-United players will definitely be involved in the World Cup.

Shock treatment

Little thought experiment for you. What word would you use to describe the idea of Kobbie Mainoo joining Newcastle from Manchester United in January?

Feasible? Logical? Understandable? Loads of viable options, we think, to describe the potential mid-season transfer of a player who is barely figuring at all for his current team in a season where he desperately needs minutes with the World Cup on the horizon.

If, however, you chose the word ‘Shock’ then congratulations, you are Tom Coley of The Sun.