Following another forgettable weekend with a demoralising Premier League defeat to Brentford, the predictable trigger of another wave of calls for Ruben Amorim’s dismissal has emerged.
Social media is ablaze with familiar talking points about his system not working, players looking confused, and the need for yet another fresh start.
However, suppose Manchester United are serious about breaking their cycle of mediocrity. In that case, they need to resist this urge and confront an uncomfortable truth: the problem isn’t the manager or his system.
Repeating the same mistakes at Manchester United
Over the past 13 years, Manchester United have employed five permanent managers and four interim appointments. Each arrived with different formations, philosophies, and promises of renewal.
Louis van Gaal introduced his possession-based 3-5-2 formation, Jose Mourinho implemented his pragmatic 4-2-3-1, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer attempted to recreate Sir Alex Ferguson’s counter-attacking approach.
More recently, Erik ten Hag presented his Ajax-inspired pressing system. Now, as our sixth manager, Amorim has his wing-back structure.
The formations changed, but the results ultimately remained depressingly similar. A brief purple patch, perhaps a cup win or Champions League qualification here and there, followed by inevitable decline.
Each manager received initial backing from fans, hopeful that they had finally found the solution, only to face calls for dismissal when reality set in.
Marcus Rashford’s recent comments on The Rest is Football Podcast perfectly captured this dysfunction: “If your direction is always changing, you can’t expect to be able to win the league,” he said.
“Yeah, you might win some cup tournaments, but it’s because you do have a good coach, and you do have good players, and you have match winners in your team – you’re not there by accident.
“This is what some people forget. People say we’ve been in a transition for years. To be in a transition, you have to start the transition. So, it’s like the actual transition’s not started yet.”
You’re welcome to have your own opinion on Rashford. But you can’t argue that his observation cuts to the heart of United’s problem. And how many other players in the squad feel the same way?
The club has mistaken constant change for meaningful transition. Actual transition requires commitment to a singular vision and the patience to see it through difficult periods.
Instead, we have created a culture of instability where players know that another complete tactical overhaul is always just around the corner.
This constant directional change has created what could be termed “transition paralysis” – players become hesitant to fully commit to any system because they’ve learned that investment in one approach will likely be wasted when the next manager arrives.
It goes without saying that the psychological impact of this uncertainty cannot be overstated.
When players know that their role, position, and even playing philosophy might change every 12-18 months, it becomes impossible to develop the deep tactical understanding and automatic responses that separate good teams from great ones.
The numbers tell the story starkly. Since Sir Alex’s retirement, we have won just five cups across six different managerial reigns, ten if you include the interims. Meanwhile, we’ve spent over £1.5 billion on transfers.
At the same time, Manchester City has collected title after title, and Liverpool has returned to prominence under Jurgen Klopp, who ironically used the exact blueprint that Sir Alex used to rebuild the foundations of a new dynasty.
We have indeed become exactly what Rashford described – a cup team capable of isolated successes but fundamentally incapable of sustaining the consistency required for league dominance.
The Madness Must Stop
The calls for Amorim’s dismissal represent the same cyclical impatience that has plagued United for over a decade.
Each managerial change has been justified by short-term thinking and the belief that the next appointment will somehow solve problems that run far deeper than tactics or personnel.
I saw this mentality reach its most extreme expression recently when a prominent Twitter user declared, “Football has moved on from Sir Alex’s days. If we have to sack 20 more [managers] to start competing for the league, so be it.”
This sentiment perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with United’s approach over the past 13 years and demonstrates that nothing has been learned from the repeated failures of the managerial carousel.
The fundamental flaw in this thinking is the assumption that Football’s evolution has somehow invalidated the basic principles of institutional success.
While tactics, technology, and player development have indeed advanced since Sir Alex’s era, the core foundations of running a successful football club remain unchanged: clear vision, cultural consistency, patient development, and institutional alignment.
Consider the clubs that have sustained success in modern Football. City’s dominance didn’t emerge from constantly changing managers but from a decade-long commitment to Pep Guardiola’s philosophy, backed by consistent recruitment and infrastructure development.
Liverpool’s resurgence under Klopp required years of patient cultural reconstruction before tactical sophistication could flourish. Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and other elite clubs maintain their dominance across different managers because they have established cultures that transcend individual coaches.
Players understand expectations and standards regardless of tactical variations. This institutional strength enables tactical flexibility without cultural compromise. Even clubs like Brighton and Brentford have achieved remarkable progress through sustained commitment to specific philosophies.
The “sack 20 more managers” mentality reveals a complete misunderstanding of what made Sir Alex successful.
It wasn’t his tactical innovations; many of his methods were relatively simple compared to today’s sophisticated systems. Sir Alex’s genius lay in creating an environment where standards were non-negotiable, where every player understood their role in the collective mission, and where short-term setbacks never derailed long-term vision.
Football may have moved on tactically, but the psychological and cultural principles that underpin sustained success remain timeless.
Players still need clarity of purpose, institutional stability, and confidence that their development matters. Teams still require time to develop tactical understanding and collective chemistry. Clubs still need alignment between all departments to function effectively.
The irony is that this approach has already failed spectacularly. United have essentially tried the “sack 20 managers” strategy on a smaller scale, cycling through nine different appointments in 13 years.
Each change brought temporary hope followed by inevitable disappointment, creating a culture of never-ending instability that makes success increasingly challenging to achieve.
This pattern must be broken, not through blind faith, but through recognition that sustainable success requires cultural transformation before tactical sophistication.
The evidence is clear: quick fixes don’t work. United have tried buying success, changing formations, and rotating managers. None have worked because the underlying cultural issues have not been addressed.
The Reality Nobody Wants to Accept
Manchester United’s rehabilitation will proceed at the pace cultural transformation allows, not faster.
This reality frustrates supporters accustomed to immediate gratification, but the alternative—another cycle of managerial change and false dawn—offers only temporary relief from a permanent problem.
The club’s history provides both warning and hope. The post-Busby decline lasted nearly two decades, but United eventually returned to greatness through a patient process of cultural reconstruction.
Sir Alex’s transformation took seven years, but it laid the foundations for unprecedented success. Today’s United must choose between short-term appeasement and long-term vision.
As I have repeatedly said, and have been criticised for, culture before tactics, always. The price of ignoring this truth is another decade of decline. The reward for embracing it is sustainable success built on foundations that can weather any storm.
Patience isn’t passive acceptance of mediocrity, or as some fans regularly like to argue, the “Lowering of standards”, it’s the active choice to prioritise lasting change over temporary fixes.
Manchester United’s supporters have waited 13 years for genuine progress. Breaking the cycle requires understanding that progress isn’t measured in months, but in years; not in formations, but in foundations; not in tactics, but in transformation.
They say that ‘The definition of insanity is repeating the same thing, and expecting different results’. If that’s true, then United’s approach to solving their problems over the past 13 years has been certifiably mad.
Ten managerial appointments, countless tactical overhauls, £1.5 billion (and counting) in transfers, all while expecting that the following change will somehow produce different outcomes from identical approaches.
Some might argue that Amorim stubbornly sticking to his system despite poor results is equally insane. But there’s a crucial difference: Amorim is persisting with one tactical approach to allow players time to master it. At the same time, United’s institutional pattern involves abandoning approaches before they’ve had a chance to take root.
One is consistency in pursuit of mastery; the other is reactionary panic dressed up as decisive action.
Sir Alex didn’t change his fundamental philosophy every time we hit a rough patch – he refined it, reinforced it, and gave players time to absorb it. That’s not insanity, it’s how learning works.
So the absolute insanity isn’t Amorim’s system, his refusal to watch penalties, or his emotional post-match comments. It’s thinking that tactical revolution without cultural evolution will somehow work this time. It’s hoping that the eleventh roll of the dice will finally come up six when the previous ten attempts have proven the game itself is rigged.
It may be time to try something truly radical—patience, consistency, and the revolutionary idea that building sustainable success requires more than 10 months.
After 13 years of proven insanity, it might just be unbelievable enough to work.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments or across our social channels. You can contact Reza through Twitter or his website.
Recent Posts
- Roy Keane | A Legacy of Leadership, Passion, and Controversy
- Manchester United would do well to embrace Adam Wharton
- Episode 89 | Old Trafford, contracts and Manchester United summer targets
7 responses to “Thirteen Years of Insanity: Why Sacking Ruben Amorim Won’t Save United”
Well said. You couldn’t have analyzed our situation better.
For me the biggest problem isn’t the players and the management. It’s the Glazers who for years
are constantly using the club as a cash cow and now have used Ineos and Ratcliffe as the man to blame(who also has his minor share in that).
My view is that as long as these leeches are in the helm we can’t return to glory days. Hope I’m wrong.
Reza did a great job of articulating his feelings. It’s a valid consideration, and I’m glad it resonated with you, George. Thanks for the support!
You are welcome Shaun. Hope for the club to turn its fortunes to return where it belongs. Although with such pressure that comes along with this club i don’t know when will that happen.
Brilliant piece fair play. This is just my opinion, but I feel like Ole got such a raw deal looking back. It was never this bad. And he was trying to evolve the gameplan.
I do hope it turns for Amorim. But the faith it dwindling
Thank you for the support, Danny. Ole did his best and offered the closest bond between players and supporters, but we saw such familiar traits at the end of his tenure.
Absolutely spot on. An excellent analysis of the shambles UTD have been for the last 13 years. The sooner people realise that the manager is not the sole problem the sooner we can get behind the manager and team and have some faith. I truly believe Amorin is the right man to get us back where we belong.
Thank you for supporting the site and Reza’s work, Graeme. I can’t begin to explain the disdain I have for that family.