Ruben Amorim attempts to fix another Ten Hag mistake as Man Utd transfer confirmed

Andre Onana is the latest Erik ten Hag signing to leave under Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim, with the goalkeeper joining Trabzonspor on loan.

People will say Amorim has created much of his own mess at Old Trafford with his tactical stubbornness and outspoken, speak-before-you-think nature in press conferences and interviews.

But he is cleaning up an unholy mess left by his predecessor. A mess that was, admittedly, enabled by the Man Utd hierarchy.

The new-ish Red Devils hierarchy has already made several mistakes. One was keeping Ten Hag after a worst-ever Premier League campaign in 2023/24. Another might well be picking Amorim as his replacement less than four months after his contract extension.

There may be a vastly different boardroom, personnel-wise, but the same mistakes the old hierarchy made with Ten Hag have potentially been repeated with Amorim. And if his fate is the same, a club in transition could end up in an even bigger mess than the one the Portuguese inherited.

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In Ten Hag’s first summer at Man Utd, he was backed with a monstrous, club-record transfer window, spending £227million on Antony, Tyrell Malacia, Lisandro Martinez and Casemiro, while Christian Eriksen joined on a free transfer and Martin Dubravka on loan.

Man Utd had their foreshadowing moments, such as the 7-0 defeat at Liverpool and the Europa League meltdown against Sevilla, but overall, it was a positive first season for Ten Hag, who guided the Red Devils to third in the Premier League, the FA Cup final, and Carabao Cup glory.

The club clearly got giddy and backed Ten Hag with more of ‘his own players’. Rasmus Hojlund, Mason Mount, Andre Onana, Sofyan Amrabat, Altay Bayindir, Jonny Evans and Sergio Reguilon all joined for a combined £166million.

Ten Hag was clearly obsessed with signing players he had previously managed, or at least those with Eredivisie experience.

That approach was again evident in a 2024 summer full of uncertainty surrounding his future, as Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui were among those to move to Old Trafford.

Fast forward to January 2025: Amorim is two months into the job, not being backed with heavy spending because Man Utd’s hands are tied, but supported with the signing of wing-back Patrick Dorgu — a clear sign that Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his board are buying into their head coach’s 3-4-2-1 system.

Six months, two domestic cup exits, a Europa League final defeat, and a record-low 15th-place finish in the Premier League later, they did it again.

Amorim was backed with an enormous transfer kitty as the club remained confident in his managerial ability and in a formation that’s still not working.

But while he has been supported with new signings and patience, he has also been tasked with finding solutions for a host of underperforming players signed by his predecessor.

Onana has now followed Ten Hag signings Antony and Hojlund out under Amorim’s watch.

Those are three extremely expensive mistakes. There are suggestions that Ten Hag preferred other strikers, like Harry Kane, over Hojlund, but there’s no doubt the Dutchman desperately wanted Antony and Onana, both of whom he managed at Ajax.

The goalkeeper situation was one Amorim wanted to address in the summer but knew it was easier said than done with more pressing issues in attack and a restricted budget.

A pre-season injury suffered by Onana got the ball rolling, as Man Utd ended up signing Senne Lammens on deadline day, with the 29-year-old falling from first to third choice in just two months.

Signed for a reported £47m from Inter, Onana has now joined Trabzonspor, who finished seventh in last season’s Turkish Super Lig, on a season-long loan.

It’s another catastrophic transfer loss for Man Utd, who thought they were getting a world-class goalkeeper but ended up with one of the most error-prone and least commanding keepers in the club’s recent history.

Amorim might be creating his own mess, but he’s hardly being helped when he has to find new clubs for a bunch of players he knows aren’t good enough, despite costing big money under Ten Hag’s watch.

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