RUBEN Amorim’s Manchester United have lost their first game one-nil to a team widely tipped as title contenders and yet he remains in post. Why?
Laziness
It’s summer. Chairman Sir Jim Ratcliffe, much as he enjoys the erotic frisson of a good firing, is on holiday. Too mean to subscribe to Sky Sports, he may not even have heard the result until Match of the Day where it was the last match shown due to being shite. Consequently he’ll let Amorim lose the next game and condemn them to certain relegation.
Shame
Like viewers of Marvel films, drivers of Smart cars and Brexiters, United are no strangers to the sunk-cost fallacy. To change course now, even when it is undeniable the club will not secure a single point all season, would be a humiliating admission that a terrible mistake was made. And thus Amorim stumbles on, a dead man walking.
False hope
Even against giants like Fulham and Burnley, against who they can only lose, United are foolish enough to harbour hope. A sneaked goal there, a bumbled save here, and maybe they can escape with a draw. Even though they know under their hapless manager they’ll be bottom of the Championship by Christmas next year, they dream.
Past glory
The Red Devils haven’t won a trophy since the distant triumph of the FA Cup in 2024 – a staggering 980 years ago, when measured in housefly lifespans – but continue to believe those long-ago glory days will come around again. That the return of the Babylonian empire would be more likely eludes the deluded fools.
No other managers
The rich seam of foreign managers seemed inexhaustible in the 1990s, but we have run out. Most European clubs are now run by EU appointees drafted against their will. If Amorim was sacked the team would be rudderless, lost and irredeemably broken, but despite this being preferable to his continuing United refuse to do the right thing.
The classic Freudian death drive
All creatures long for death, Sigmund Freud wrote, and can Manchester United be any exception? After all their achievements do they not weep for there are no commercial partner brands left to conquer? By leaving Amorim in post, are they not stating they yearn to play Bamber Bridge in the The Pitching In Northern Premier League? Yes. Godspeed.
