Amorim among sacked managers made to look foolish by overruled transfer plans this season
Manchester United would look very different if they hadn’t ‘refused to sanction’ two transfers Ruben Amorim championed before ultimately being sacked.
Maybe Jason Wilcox is a genius after all.
Things could have been even worse for Nottingham Forest too, while Wolves probably regret being so deferential to a manager they soon parted ways with.
These are three sacked managers who have been made to look remarkably foolish by transfer plans overruled either by their clubs or themselves this season.
Ruben Amorim wanted Emi Martinez (not Senne Lammens)
It remains the case that Senne Lammens ‘will f*** up’ and Manchester United must show patience and understanding in that moment.
But that wait extending well beyond the Belgian’s first half-season in the Premier League already justifies the decision to sign him instead of Emi Martinez.
The Manchester United hierarchy indulged a great many of Ruben Amorim’s idiosyncrasies and idiocies, but ‘drew a line’ and ‘refused to sanction’ what would have been a far more expensive and high-profile move, when the benefits of Lammens’ subdued, quietly authoritative style have been clear to see.
Amorim even aimed an apparent ‘dig at the board for passing on Martinez’ in an October interview, having described it as “hard to be a Manchester United goalkeeper in this moment,” a couple of months before
“They are humans. At Manchester United, everything is in the news,” he added, after mistakes from Altay Bayindir hindered the club’s Premier League start and Andre Onana floundered against Grimsby in their Carabao Cup humiliation.
That spotlight, combined with Martinez’s particular headline-grabbing brand of sh*thousery and penchant for turning personal awards into prosthetic penises, might well have been combustible.
“Everybody talks about the goalkeeper. I can change the goalkeeper and situations happen,” Amorim also said. Yet Manchester United did change the goalkeeper and the brilliant silence of the Lammens since has spoken volumes.
Ruben Amorim wanted Ollie Watkins (not Benjamin Sesko)
It is an especially opportunistic moment to damn Amorim, with Michael Carrick’s continued success in the Old Trafford dugout begging yet more questions of the Portuguese coach and his methods.
Even Amorim’s contribution to a genuinely excellent, uncharacteristically focused window of summer recruitment for Manchester United has to be painted in a certain light, with praise for his part measured.
The push for Premier League-proven talent delivered Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha, both of whom have helped transform a previously underperforming attack.
But much like how Amorim was overruled with Lammens pursued over Martinez, Manchester United also sensed that Benjamin Sesko was a better fit than Ollie Watkins.
It was faintly ludicrous that their striker shortlist was whittled down to two such diametrically opposed players in one position yet again, but Manchester United deserve credit for ignoring the obvious answer of throwing money at Aston Villa for a known commodity, and instead investing in a far better option for the future.
Sesko emerging as the stronger selection in the present too is a welcome boost. His seven Premier League goals have come in 1,135 minutes for the team in fourth, compared to Watkins’ eight in 2,001 minutes for the side in third.
Vitor Pereira wanted tall lads (not Harry Wilson)
Wolves probably haven’t been ridiculed enough for sacking managers to whom they had handed long-term contracts just a couple of months prior in consecutive seasons.
They definitely should have faced more mockery and derision for giving the second coach in that sequence such control over a transfer policy that set them on an irreversible course towards the Championship.
Vitor Pereira and director of football Domenico Teti left Wolves in November but their fingerprints on this abysmal season will still be eminently visible in May. Given the authority and power to shape and dictate the club’s transfer policy, they targeted tall, athletic players as part of their vision.
None of the new recruits had ever played in the Premier League before.
Jeff Shi, the executive chairman who himself has long since left, called it “a good window” in which Wolves “tried to build a squad based on [Pereira’s] view and his philosophy”.
Pereira’s level of control and the emphasis placed on physical attributes meant, according to Steve Madeley of The Athletic, that Wolves decided to ‘reject potential domestic signings’, including 5ft 8ins Harry Wilson.
The Welshman has eight goals and five assists in the Premier League this season; no Wolves player has mustered three of either statistic so far. And of course Wilson netted in the game which ultimately sealed Pereira’s fate.
Sean Dyche obviously wanted Dwight McbloodyNeil
Never again should anyone fall for the idea that Sean Dyche coaches the way he does based on the quality of squad he has at his disposal – that, if given better players, his approach would be more expansive and attractive.
It is fair to say that Nottingham Forest spent almost £200m in the summer perhaps more aimlessly than any institution in history, but Dyche did inherit a technically gifted group and was sacked largely because he made them do too much running.
The targets he is reported to have wanted in his only transfer window at the City Ground also underline precisely how little imagination Dyche has. If he already felt pigeonholed as an old-school, defensive dinosaur stuck in his Burnley days, this line from the Daily Mail’s Tom Collomosse does not help his case:
‘He coveted powerful, battle-hardened Premier League players to boost Forest’s fight for survival, like his former pupil Dwight McNeil, Newcastle goalkeeper Nick Pope and Brighton pair Jack Hinshelwood and Lewis Dunk.’
Forest, in fairness, decided that they’d literally rather be relegated than spend at least £20m on any of them. If you are the least sensible person in a room occupied by Evangelos Marinakis, something has gone gravely wrong.
