Man Utd execs in football’s cushiest gigs should face the music with Amorim

Another defeat for Manchester United prompted the inevitable handwringing and hilarity over the position a once-great club continues to find itself.

Specifically, that’s 14th in the Premier League table. More generally, it’s somewhere even bleaker than that.

The next obvious move for United would be to change their manager. Again. Given the lack of tangible improvement since he was appointed almost a year ago and the lack of optimism over a swift and dramatic reversal of their current fortunes, Ruben Amorim could have few arguments if he was handed his cards.

Actually, he might gladly receive them. On numerous occasions, Amorim has presented as a manager aching to be put out of his misery, despite the outward defiance while steadfastly, stubbornly refusing to even consider that there may be good reasons why few clubs employ his formation of choice.

Certainly, only United use it while so woefully ill-equipped. Amorim knows, but persists regardless, and so too do his bosses, if the noises coming out of Old Trafford are to be believed.

Apparently, United are not thinking of dispensing with Amorim because Sir Jim Ratcliffe feels it is only fair to judge him after a full season with, as the BBC’s Simon Stone reports, the ‘right team’.

Amorim may get a full season. But not one with the right team.

How can it be when the individuals don’t fit the system? That was a very fair and reasonable excuse for the sh*t that was served through the second half of last season. But even after a full summer transfer window, United have failed to furnish Amorim with the players necessary to make his system work.

We can all spend hours picking apart the components of Amorim’s United team – it’s how many get their kicks – but the flaws that really stand out: the absence of a No.1 goalkeeper, wing-backs of the necessary standard, a midfielder to hold it all together, and the redeployment of their best player in a wholly unsuitable role.

Even if we look beyond the fact that Amorim is putting his devout faith in his system above the immediate needs of the team he is paid handsomely to improve, there are plenty of reasons to target the manager. But Amorim is taking all the bullets, providing cover for those who set him up to fail.

Perhaps the root of many of United’s problems can be found in the layers between the manager and minority owner who remain the faces of the club’s failures. At what point do we look at Jason Wilcox, Omar Berrada and Christopher Vivell? And how would anyone ask: what the f*** are you doing, lads?

Wilcox is United’s director of football. No one has really thought to question the power the solid-if-unspectacular ex-winger wields at one of the world’s biggest clubs. Except Dave Tickner, of course. Perhaps we ought to have scrutinised his ascent more rather than simply waving it through, just because it was said for so long that United needed a sporting director, it almost passed the point that it mattered who.

MORE: Jason Wilcox is one of English football’s most powerful figures, in accordance with the prophecy

Wilcox was initially technical director, working alongside Dan Ashworth before it was quickly realised that his face didn’t fit. So Wilcox stepped up – or across; given the lack of definition around these types of roles, it’s often hard to know for sure – to take overall responsibility for football operations at Old Trafford and Carrington.

Wilcox was said to harbour concerns over Amorim’s suitability for the United job when the Red Devils first considered the Portuguese as a replacement for Erik ten Hag in the summer of 2024 prior to a U-turn on their decision to ditch the Dutchman. Before U-turning again less than three months into the season. Wilcox’s concerns: the level of recruitment required to make United 3-4-3 ready in a timely fashion; and the fact it is not a system that has regularly provided a foundation for success in the Premier League.

When perhaps he ought to have trusted his instincts, Wilcox was swayed by Amorim, since it was him who led the process which identified the then-Sporting coach as the best man for the job.

It is unclear how Amorim’s arrival impacted Wilcox’s quest to develop a ‘game model’, a clear and cohesive playing style that should permeate through the ranks at Carrington, but it seems that project has been shelved while United pin everything on a system their director of football never fancied anyway.

If Wilcox did have doubts, then it explains why United were reluctant to fully equip Amorim with the players he needed in the summer. Perhaps Christopher Vivell could explain what happened there.

He after all is United’s director of recruitment, a role he has held since summer 2024. No doubt United fans would relish the opportunity to ask the German why the club signed three forwards – two were needed, no question – but no midfielder in the summer; and why they opted against recruiting an experienced, proven goalkeeper. But the chances many supporters could pick Vivell out of a line-up are as slim as their title hopes.

Few of these execs possess the kind of profile where they might be identified in the street. And there are reasons for that. The modern-day football club structure is still relatively new, evidenced by the fact that whenever a sporting director job comes up, it is always the same few names that are mentioned. With so few proven track records in the candidate pool, you can see the temptation in appointing your brother, son, agent, mate.

New enough too that there is no provable link between visibility and competence. Especially when fighting with coaches, players and occasionally owners for the spotlight on a crowded stage only opens you up to greater scrutiny.

Which highlights the contradiction with these roles: Wilcox, Vivell, Berrada and their peers at other clubs, all appear to wield more power than the managers and coaches – considerably so, in some cases – yet are too often unaccountable to anyone outside their boardroom.

These are football’s cushiest gigs. Just as turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, why would any sporting director or recruitment guru volunteer to go on the record, even just to own their decisions if not to explain them?

Managers must go before the media three times a game. In the Premier League, there is no obligation for those above them to put themselves out even once a season and, given the power they wield, that should change.

Until it does, we are likely to hear scandalously little from Wilcox, Vivell and Berrada while they cower in the shadow of their shield, for now taking the form of a handsome-but-beleaguered Portuguese football coach.