Manchester United coach Amorim out one day after provocative comments about club structure

Ruben Amor­im is out as coach of Man­ches­ter Unit­ed af­ter just 14 months in the job.

The Pre­mier League club an­nounced on Mon­day that Amor­im’s reign was over—with the de­ci­sion com­ing a day af­ter he made provoca­tive com­ments about his po­si­tion fol­low­ing a 1-1 draw with Leeds.

“With Man­ches­ter Unit­ed sit­ting sixth in the Pre­mier League, the club’s lead­er­ship has re­luc­tant­ly made the de­ci­sion that it is the right time to make a change,” Unit­ed said in a state­ment. “This will give the team the best op­por­tu­ni­ty of the high­est pos­si­ble Pre­mier League fin­ish.”

Unit­ed said youth coach Dar­ren Fletch­er would take charge of its match against Burn­ley on Wednes­day.

‘I’m not go­ing to quit’

Amor­im over­saw a slew of un­want­ed records at the 20-time Eng­lish cham­pi­on in­clud­ing its low­est fin­ish in the Pre­mier League era last sea­son. The Unit­ed job has proved one of the most dif­fi­cult in world soc­cer since club leg­end Alex Fer­gu­son re­tired in 2013, with Amor­im the sixth per­ma­nent man­ag­er or coach to be dis­card­ed in that time.

Amor­im apol­o­gized to fans at the end of last sea­son for what he de­scribed as a “dis­as­trous” cam­paign when Unit­ed fin­ished 15th in the stand­ings, record­ed its high­est num­ber of loss­es in a Pre­mier League sea­son and low­est points to­tal.

Last week there were re­ports that fig­ures at the club had ques­tioned his tac­tics and on Sun­day the Por­tuguese sought to clar­i­fy his po­si­tion.

“I came here to be the man­ag­er of Man­ches­ter Unit­ed, not to be the coach of Man­ches­ter Unit­ed,” he said. “And that is clear.”

“I’m not go­ing to quit. I will do my job un­til an­oth­er guy is com­ing here to re­place me.”

One of Eu­rope’s bright­est coach­es

Amor­im was con­sid­ered one of the bright­est coach­es in Eu­rope when Unit­ed hired him from Sport­ing Lis­bon in No­vem­ber 2024 at a cost of 11 mil­lion eu­ros ($12 mil­lion). He had led the Por­tuguese gi­ant to two league ti­tles in four years and was seen as the ide­al can­di­date to lead Unit­ed back to the sum­mit of Eng­lish soc­cer af­ter more than decade since it was last crowned Pre­mier League cham­pi­on.

But re­sults plum­met­ed in his first sea­son and de­feat to Tot­ten­ham in the Eu­ropa League fi­nal end­ed hopes of qual­i­fy­ing for the lu­cra­tive Cham­pi­ons League.

Still, he was giv­en more than $300 mil­lion to re­shape his squad with sign­ings like Matheus Cun­ha and Bryan Mbeu­mo. But the strug­gles have con­tin­ued this term, with Unit­ed win­ning on­ly two of its first six games in the league and suf­fer­ing a hu­mil­i­at­ing loss to fourth-tier Grims­by in the League Cup.

Re­sults have im­proved, but just three wins from the last 11 games have seen Unit­ed fail to close the gap on the top three in the stand­ings.

Con­stant ques­tions

Amor­im faced con­stant ques­tions about his tac­tics - opt­ing for a sys­tem with wing­backs that did not seem to suit his play­ers. He was al­so ques­tioned over his re­luc­tance to play one of Unit­ed’s most tal­ent­ed home-grown tal­ents in Kob­bie Main­oo, who was large­ly over­looked de­spite pre­vi­ous­ly be­ing a key play­er for Eng­land.

He be­came known for his can­did ap­proach to in­ter­views - not least last Jan­u­ary when he ad­mit­ted his team might be the worst in the club’s his­to­ry

An im­pos­si­ble job?

Unit­ed dom­i­nat­ed Eng­land’s top flight since the in­cep­tion of the Pre­mier League in 1992 — win­ning 13 ti­tles. But it has not been crowned cham­pi­on since Fer­gu­son’s re­tire­ment.

Top names have been hired since then, in­clud­ing Cham­pi­ons League-win­ning coach­es Louis van Gaal and Jose Mour­in­ho, but they have on­ly brought lim­it­ed suc­cess.

Amor­im re­placed Erik ten Hag, who won tro­phies in each of his two full sea­sons, reached three ma­jor fi­nals and qual­i­fied for the Cham­pi­ons League. He leaves emp­ty-hand­ed.

The price of fail­ure

Amor­im was the first head coach ap­point­ed un­der the mi­nor­i­ty own­er­ship of British bil­lion­aire Jim Rat­cliffe, who as­sumed con­trol of Unit­ed’s soc­cer op­er­a­tions from U.S. ma­jor­i­ty own­ers, the Glaz­er fam­i­ly.

He is the lat­est high pro­file hire to come and go un­der Rat­cliffe, fol­low­ing the swift ex­it of for­mer sport­ing di­rec­tor Dan Ash­worth af­ter less than six months.

Rat­cliffe has sought to con­trol spend­ing since in­vest­ing $1.3 bil­lion for up to 25% in 2024 and has made sweep­ing cuts. But the de­par­tures of Ten Hag and Ash­worth alone cost $18 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to Unit­ed’s ac­counts. That was on top of the fee paid to re­lease Amor­im from his con­tract at Sport­ing Lis­bon.

Amor­im’s Unit­ed con­tract ran un­til 2027. It is un­known what sev­er­ance he will be due. —MAN­CHES­TER, Eng­land (AP)

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Sto­ry by JAMES ROB­SON | As­so­ci­at­ed Press