I like the guy who works the gate at the car park near Old Trafford. I get there early on match days and we usually exchange a few words when I pass him again on my way out towards the stadium. He’s a big Manchester United fan.
On Sunday, he wore a wry grin on his face as I walked towards him. ‘Thirty million quid to get rid of that clown?’ he said, shaking his head and talking about the cost of firing Erik ten Hag and what it may rise to when his backroom staff follow him out of the door.
The scales are beginning to fall from the eyes of even those who persisted with the idea that Ten Hag was the answer until the bitter end. He might be a decent man but history will not judge the Dutchman – or those in the United hierarchy who backed him in the summer – kindly.
It is to the everlasting credit of United supporters that they remained loyal to Ten Hag. They did not turn on him. They did not make it harder for him and his players to succeed. They stood by him even when it became obvious things were going south.
But the reality, which was more and more clear with every week that passed this season, was that Ten Hag’s reign at Old Trafford was a waste of two and a half years. United are in a worse state than they were when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer left. They are back to square one.
Manchester United sacked Erik ten Hag last week following the side’s poor start to the campaign and dismal league form last term
The Dutchman left the side languishing in 14th place in the league and without a win in Europe in more than 12 months
To watch United against Chelsea on Sunday was to watch a team that played with a veneer of spirit and a flash or two of panache but whose surface conceals a core of emptiness and complacency and mystifying entitlement.
This is the inheritance of Ruben Amorim. This is what he has been bequeathed. He represents a brave signing by Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his henchmen but he has never managed outside Portugal and, unlike Jose Mourinho when he arrived at Chelsea, he has never won anything bigger than the Portuguese league.
Amorim is a gamble. An informed gamble. But a gamble nonetheless. He is clearly a talented coach but Ten Hag, and years of appalling recruitment that predate the Dutchman, have left Amorim with a mountain to climb. There will be no quick fix. That is obvious.
Amorim will get his first shot at judging the gold standard of English football for himself when his Sporting Lisbon side takes on Manchester City in the Champions League on Tuesday evening.
And whatever the result, it will not change the fact that he is in for a rude awakening when he starts his new job. Because Sporting are a lot closer to City in terms of quality than United are.
This succession from Ten Hag to Amorim is not one of those situations where a manager has taken a club to the frontier of the promised land and then left it to his successor to apply the finishing touches. Amorim is going to have to start again and build from the bottom up.
Ruben Amorim will begin duties as United boss on November 11 after leading Sporting in matches this week, including against Man City in the Champions League
Last week, I had a conversation with a former England international about the task that the new manager faces. We played every football fan’s favourite game of arguing about how many of the United squad assembled by Ten Hag would get into the starting XI of any of the so-called ‘Big Six’ clubs.
His view was only one: Bruno Fernandes. And, even though Fernandes has been a dreadful captain for United, it is hard to disagree. Some might venture Alejandro Garnacho as the next candidate but my friend shot that down. Does Garnacho get into the Liverpool side ahead of Mo Salah or Luis Diaz? No chance.
Does he get into the Arsenal side ahead of Bukayo Saka or Gabriel Martinelli? No. Does he get into the Manchester City team ahead of any of Jeremy Doku, Savinho, Jack Grealish, Phil Foden or Bernardo Silva? We all know the answer to that.
Does Garnacho get into the Spurs team ahead of Son Heung-min or Brennan Johnson or Dejan Kulusevski? No. Does he get into the Chelsea team ahead of Pedro Neto or Noni Madueke? That’s a bit closer but the answer is still probably not.
Garnacho is a good player and he will get better but at the moment, he is simply not good enough to be part of a team that will win a title. Casemiro knows what it takes to do that and you only had to see how angry he was with Garnacho’s attitude on Sunday to know that the young Argentina winger still has an awful lot of maturing to do.
When Amorim takes over on November 11, he will not inherit a side that needs a minor tweak here and there. He will inherit a side that needs a total rebuild. He will inherit a squad stocked with deadwood and mediocrity and has-beens and never-will-bes and vanity signings and terrible mistakes and Antony.
The current United squad have come under scrutiny for their lack of production this season
Amorim has agreed to work under the broader footballing control of co-owner Ineos. Pictured: Ineos CEO Sir Jim Ratcliffe
He will walk into a club that is top-heavy with a politburo of Ineos executives who will think they can tell him who to sign and how to play and what to do.
He will walk into a club that has been mismanaged and abused by ingenues, incompetents and arrivistes for more than a decade.
He will walk into a club that has become addicted to mistakes.
So when Amorim stands on the touchline at the Estadio Jose Alvalade on Tuesday night, he better make the most of it. It might be the best chance he has of beating Manchester City for quite some time.
Cancel culture gone mad
Joe Marler’s call to ban the Haka last week revived the debate about whether the All Blacks should be allowed to continue to practise their pre-match ritual.
I don’t understand the desire to ban it. So much of sport – and the world, for that matter – is homogenised and sanitised and regulated and controlled that any elements of originality and character and distinction and culture should be preserved and cherished.
The Haka is one of rugby’s great traditions and if you ban it, you might as well ban Liverpool fans from singing You’ll Never Walk Alone before matches at Anfield or prevent renditions of Land of Our Fathers before Wales games.
The very desire to ban the Haka is cancel culture gone mad. It should be laughed out of town.
England prop Joe Marler sparked outrage last week when he called for New Zealand’s iconic Haka to be banned
A genius behind the wheel
Driving in the rain tends to sort the greats from the good in Formula One. When I covered the sport in the 90s, I was lucky enough to be at Donington Park to see Ayrton Senna work miracles in the wet to win the 1993 European Grand Prix in an inferior McLaren and in Barcelona to see Michael Schumacher’s majestic win in the 1996 Spanish Grand Prix in a downpour for a dog of a Ferrari, when he was lapping the track five seconds quicker than any of his rivals.
Max Verstappen’s stunning victory for Red Bull at Interlagos on Sunday belongs in the same category. Verstappen has his critics, as all the great ones do, but he is a genius behind the wheel.
Max Verstappen all but secured his fourth consecutive world title after a stunning win at the Brazilian Grand Prix
Mourinho’s ‘special’ ability
Jose Mourinho alleged wider impropriety in Turkish football after his Fenerbahce side beat Trabzonspor at the weekend.
Fenerbahce manager Jose Mourinho launches an incredible tirade against the Turkish Super Lig following his side’s win over Trabzonspor on Sunday
Maybe it’s just me but doesn’t Mourinho allege wider impropriety wherever he goes?
Maybe there’s just a lot of wider impropriety around. Or maybe wider impropriety seeks him out because he’s special.
