Manchester United banter 4

06 Jan 2026 13:08:55
Oles at the wheel ????.

06 Jan 2026 14:45:39
I want this to happen just to see Ken spontaneously combust.

06 Jan 2026 15:16:00
Why I posted it ???.

06 Jan 2026 16:01:05
His record as an interim manager, is second to none ?.

06 Jan 2026 16:16:05
Have we thought of hiring None if he is better than Ole?

06 Jan 2026 16:36:38
I’d happily see OGS back as interim. Played some good football under him.

Went wrong at the end, but a lot of it was good.

06 Jan 2026 17:36:03
I despair at what may happen, 6 months of love in and never ending demands to make him permanent. If they want to make us the utter joke club, put Ole in charge.

06 Jan 2026 17:52:47
But as an interim, Red Man?

Record second to none? ?.

06 Jan 2026 18:18:20
Record 2nd to none because not many clubs hire interim managers?

06 Jan 2026 18:18:46
Grim, that made me laugh, thanks.

06 Jan 2026 19:36:01
Nou

Ole had a losing run to Villa, Leicester Liverpool 5 nil, yes 5 nil, City Watford.
People have short fuzzy memories blurred by a goal in 99.

06 Jan 2026 22:55:24
As interim. 14 wins and 2 draws in 19 games. Goal difference of over 2 to 1.
Fuzzy memories, indeed.

06 Jan 2026 23:07:18
Or by the 14 wins in 19 games as an interim manager which would be his role this time? Amorim won 15 in 47 remember.

07 Jan 2026 13:15:08
I'll be buzzing if he comes back, the only time I've felt like I was watching a united side since sir alex left.

06 Jan 2026 10:44:30
Amorim wasn't wrong when he said things will be getting a lot worse before they get better. Genuinely, I don't see what direction the club go now. It feels like the leadership team want a yes man but any top Manager/Head Coach that is worth their weight in gold is not going to be this character.

Time and time again I hear people say we need the best in class but with that you have to allow them to do what they did to get to best in class. The next couple of appointments are really going to show what this board is all about.

For what it's worth, I'd be going all out for Luis Enrique. Yes he's on a good gig at PSG and everyone will ask why would he leave them for United but for me, he has achieved everything at PSG, he has been successful in Spain and France, I am sure every top Manager/Coach would want a crack at the Premier League and there is still that ''What if'' question Managers will ask themselves about being the one to succeed at United. Certainly worth testing the waters anyway IMO.

Til the end of season, I'd genuinely look at Solskjaer but get maybe Rene Meulensteen back in alongside him. Not sure what other options there are to be honest.

06 Jan 2026 11:20:45
Agree its a mess and the reality is over the next 4 games it could get a lot messier.

If we don't get 3 points tomorrow and get knocked out of the cup and then face Arsenal and City back to back.

The season could pretty much be over when it comes to trophies and the “lofty goal” of returning to the champions league.

06 Jan 2026 11:48:25
I'm still in shock. Almost grief-stricken. If those who were calling for RA to be sacked think that we are now in a better place because they got their wish, then you are fools. I cannot believe WTAF the club has just done.

We will be in the outback without a compass for years to come at this rate, and the only change will be a different manager with the same folk baying for his blood. Sickening.

06 Jan 2026 12:00:29
Fizz

Am the same. I am actually furious at this, it puts the change and any serious culture change back for a long time. The club got rid of Rangnick and now Amorim, the clear message is we don’t want change. (underlying it seems as long as the money keeps coming in)

He may not have got every selection right but there was a clear direction and change in mentality. Utterly appalled.

06 Jan 2026 12:42:07
I don't think it will be quite as tragic as being made out :D
Ok, things are a mess at the top, anyone can see that and I imagine there will be more hiring and firing to come.
On the pitch we'll more than likely get spanked by the two top teams in the coming weeks - anything at all from those games would be gratefully received, hell I'd settle for 2 points there.


But, I do expect a win on weds, hopefully to still be in the cup sunday evening, and I am looking forward to whoever the caretaker is for the remainder of the season to make a go of it. It's still a great opportunity for someone and one of those CL spots is there for the taking IMO. Whoever it is will be thinking the job could be there for the taking if they lift the place.

06 Jan 2026 13:26:05
No to OGS.

06 Jan 2026 13:36:53
I disagree with some of this. From what ed001 has said, the club had decided to back Amorim and replace Wilcox. The press conference outburst was unnecessary because Amorim had won the power struggle. As such, he wanted to go and put the club in a position where they had to sack him.

06 Jan 2026 13:49:59
I'm with Fizz and Redman, not so much from a 'results on the pitch perspective' but for what it means for our club. I had sensed the culture change - the collaborative direction, the rotten eggs being removed from the club, a positive dressing room who are aligned with the manager, a manager who is young, developing and building a long-term playing style and approach.

All of that has been destroyed in one fell swoop. This puts us back on the merry go round of manager in, manager out with no clear direction and no end goal in sight. Are we as stupid as Chelsea to seek short term success and then not actually deliver against it? That's exactly what is going to happen. again.

As crazy as it might sound, when I look at the list of managers we are being linked with, I see nothing inspiring and candidly nothing that makes me excited to go to every game. I'd actually found that again for the first time since 2012 even though the results weren't good. I felt I was watching a journey and the club re-finding itself and the principles that it was built on.

I'd take Amorim back in a heartbeat - at least we had a direction and a vision to get behind.

06 Jan 2026 14:05:18
Red Man / Fizz - I appreciate your loyalty and inputs, but let's not pretend RA didn't orchestrate his own sacking.

I don't think Wilcox or Berrada are not to blame in all of this, but he didn't need to come out and say what he did, he knew what the consequences would be by saying it, and I'm sure he got a nice healthy payout to go with it. The comments were ridiculous, he was Head Coach, with a structure above him set to determine the identity of Manchester United, which all fans screamed for. RA was too stubborn to make changes on a system, that regardless of your views of the squad, resulted in him being the worst United manager since Ferguson.

I also don't know what change in mentality you're referring to. The player mentality was appalling at times if we are going by some of their performances.

06 Jan 2026 14:18:59
Excellent post jd123. In a nutshell.

06 Jan 2026 14:19:28
I liked him as a person but its not a loss as a coach. not sure why everyone is freaking out. we are generally utter sh. t to watch mostly with a sprinkle of hope here and there and been that way for so long.

His results are the worst of any manager I have seen. If the idea was he wanted 15 more players before it clicked, good luck to the man finding a club that would put up with that at the top level.

Decent lengthy article by athletic which is unbiased. Barada and sjr wanted him and wilcox was on the fence about his system and came around and ashworth was not onboard with it.

It paints a poor picture of him and his man management skills of players and a his coaching staff being young and inexperienced and how he refused to make adjustments and even not happy with lemmens signing or sesko as he wanted martinez and watkins. I actually back the club on the signings can't be signing older players with high wages and then we are stuck with them and everyone complains in the fan base.

Our results will improve and we will have a much better second half of the season imo.

06 Jan 2026 15:21:29
“I’m a COACH at heart, ” Jason Wilcox told the Manchester United former players’ association in September.

“That’s a strength in my role now, but also causes me a bit of a problem because I always want to INTERFERE in what the managers are doing. ”

Can't think why Amorim might have been pi$$ed off and became ever more stubborn.

06 Jan 2026 15:30:49
Amorim should've done better then. He wouldn't have been sacked. He was rubbish.

06 Jan 2026 15:48:11
Angel, I'm often accused of being unable to suffer fools gladly and refusing to engage with buffoons. I don't defend myself from those allegations; indeed, I agree with them. So, if it's okay with you, I shall not be engaging with you in the future.

06 Jan 2026 16:03:29
I genuinely thought we were turning a corner. I know we had some dubious performances lately, but with a full strength team back, I was quite optimistic for the rest of the season.

Has to be Ole now, doesn't it? . ?.

06 Jan 2026 16:44:11
Nou, he just wasn't good enough, there's no getting away from it. The club made a mistake with his appointment. I'm sure he is a fine coach, but his style, his formation, tactics, none aligned with this club and I wish him all the best at whatever club he ends up at. But there's no getting away from the fact that he has the worse stats as a man united manager since the 70s. He was really poor.

Haha ole as interim, as long as he isn't appointed full time again, I'm not opposed to it.

06 Jan 2026 17:43:55
Someone needed to do the open heart surgery, but sadly there are at least three posters in this section that can’t see what was happening. The change the club desperately needed to move forward has been cancelled for another season. SAF first few years were tough but he sorted it out, this is modern people, impatient and can’t see a bigger picture.
The quiet beneficiaries will likely be the financial side, another yacht for the Glazers.


Now the Ole cheerleaders start, win a couple of games and all the problems are forgotten. Pathetic.
Sack Wilcox and Berada should be on borrowed time. Those old social media anti United posts don’t do him any favours at all.
Where was the leadership in dealing with this. Someone abdicated responsibility for sorting Wilcox out and ensuring the manager had what he needed. SJR sacked the wrong person.

06 Jan 2026 18:52:29
they got fed up with our results and his stubbornness of not willing to change. They questioned it, he reacted like a child and said stuff publicly he should have not and got sacked. if i owned it i would sack him too. get over it and we move on.

06 Jan 2026 21:22:54
Ahmad

Let’s quote Amorims now former boss, Wilcox. “I’m a coach at heart. That’s a strength in my role now but also causes me a bit of a problem because I always want to interfere in what the managers are doing”

Tell us all honestly, if your boss interfered with your decisions and told you to change them what would you do?

His stubbornness or not willing to change you say, well that was the strength we were looking for, conviction. If there is an error it was whoever hired him and thought they could change his principles. We are lucky to have had a manager with principles. Terrible mess we are in. Again.

06 Jan 2026 22:06:56
Red man, 38% win rate. They gave him so much rope and his insistence on his style of play was just not working.

Ed001 says they were actually going to sack Wilcox.

The athletic article paints a much different story than what you want to believe.

He performed appalling and was let go after he shot himself in his last press conference.

The mistake was in allowing him 14 months to do something that clearly wasn't working.

Had he been doing a good job, no one would have said anything.

07 Jan 2026 13:55:35
Red Man, no-one is a cheerleader. You always come across as quite a serious chap, so I've no idea why you have to throw these childish little comments just because someone disagrees with you.

Part of me is just on the wind-up with Ole, but part of me genuinely does think, as an interim, we could do much worse than him.

06 Jan 2026 07:39:03
{Ed's Note - Red Man has posted a new article entitled, Time to Reflect on Manchester United

06 Jan 2026 09:55:42
The board mainly Wilcox have to take a lot of the blame red man.
Dan ashworth a highly regarded experience dog was pushed out and basically replaced by Wilcox.

We have bought 5 players: 2 first teamers and 3 youngsters who should never have had the responsibility put on them.

Amorim wanted Watkins, Martinez, estupien he got sesko lammens and dorgu what does that tell you. Added to that dalot, Shaw and Maguire are all vital parts of our team these guys weren't good enough under Jose and ole.

06 Jan 2026 10:59:15
As much as I agree with us being in shambles in terms of proper structure, your article makes it sound as if Amorim is a victim here. He is a good up and coming coach but he has his flaws as well.
He did bring some positive and refreshing aspects to the club but his stubbornness and entrenched position had the whole club suffering.
I do not think the club left him without mfs, he had a say in: Collyer's loan move, in not trying Kone in the 1st team after his recovery, his fallout with Mainoo etc.


Look at what Howe has done with Miley at Newcastle, Nico O'Rieley at City, Skelly and Nwaneri at Arsenal, Wharton at Palace, etc When we are struggling for mfs, I am sure we have at least one who could step up.

06 Jan 2026 00:19:10
Just bizarre.

Utd doing well in 6th, 3 points from top 4 and Amorim shoots himself in the head.

06 Jan 2026 06:49:45
It’s something that looks like it has been building for a while and Amorim has had enough.

The fault lies with the management, they have let the situation get out of control and it should have been settled and resolved a long time ago than fester as it has.

06 Jan 2026 07:20:15
The last few Amorim press conferences sounds like a man who’s not getting what was agreed. Since the summer Amorim has mentioned the wingbacks and midfield quite a few times. Reading between the likes it looks like he was annoyed he didn’t get a wingback and more importantly a CM in the summer. Now the window is open he was expecting additions in these positions but was told no, on top of that it looks like Wilcox put pressure on to change his system.

Essentially they told RA no new players, you change your system……. They had a big fall out, RA takes the can.

The club signed RA knowing full well they had a very inadequate squad, certainly not a 3-4-2-1 squad. This is on the board, the outgoings have been slow. The incomings we negotiated Mbeumo for months only to pay the original fee. Sesko was 5th choice and late in the window. Lammens looks a great signing but again very late in the window. We apparently tried for Belaba which shows the club know there is a midfield issue.

This season looks a right off, we might get top 5, who knows. It’s a shame as I think with a new midfielder or two top 4 was easily achievable for RA. Even a couple of loans. Top 4 changes your summer transfer window significantly.

It will be telling what type of manager we go for in the summer and if Wilcox is still here. It looks like we’ll go the Chelsea route at the moment with the board dictating the squad and the Manager just being a head coach. That takes all the big names off the table as they won’t work in that system.

05 Jan 2026 23:31:31
Any chance of someone at United doing a performance review on Wilcox and berrada? Maybe hold them to account for the sh1t show that they’ve overseen?

Kept eth and gave new contract
Signed players for eth costing £200m
Fired eth 4 months later costing 10m

Hired ashworth
Paid Newcastle £2m compensation
Fired ashworth 4 months later costing 6-8m in compensation

Hired Amorim mid season knowing full well his philosophy and mentality didn’t match our squad. Signed decent players in the summer (mbeumo, cunha) but again left midfield with a massive deficiency and now sacked RA, not because of performances but because of a personality clash.

I didn’t think RA was the right man however the 2 above him are a massive problem and I’ve zero trust in them getting any decision right. We seem to have replaced the old regime with a new one just as incompetent and full of ego. Brilliant.

06 Jan 2026 00:30:24
Agree with the negatives above Tim.

For balance should also add that they (along with Amorim) moved on Rashford, Sancho, Garna and possibly the worst goalkeeper in our history.

The club is a mess. We have taken half a stride forward and stumbled along the way. We desperately need another few good signings of the class of Mbueno, Cunha, De Ligt, Lammens.

Yoro, Heaven, Dorgu all look like they could be good players, but we need to remove the old guard and bring in a few more first team ready players. I think both the strikers they have signed could have been good, but they needed to have another striker to compete against and work with so the pressure is not quite so much. We need wingers (or wingbacks) who are more dangerous and we need midfielders who can control a game.

Not all signings have to be 10/10. I think a Gallagher could be a great signing for midfield homegrown depth. Maybe a backup striker who can support sesko and pick up a few late game points. A dangerous wide player who can cross and works hard. We can dream.

06 Jan 2026 07:47:04
Agree dodgy that the signings have been pretty good, it’s more their general decision making that I’ve an issue with. Seems to be very muddled.

06 Jan 2026 09:30:52
Careful Tim, there are people here who would never allow you to question the world‑class structure we’ve been told to support – because they know more than us lowly peasants.

If you want a preview of what’s coming, just look at INEOS handling of OGC Nice.

Frequent changes in coaches, sporting directors and senior executives, with budgets and authority shifting season to season as focus drifted elsewhere - Check.

A clear swing from initial heavy spending to aggressive cost control, including budget reductions - Check.

You can own a bigger and better car as many times as you like. If the same bad driver is the one at the wheel, we already know how the journey ends - in a ditch.

I don't think we will truly progress until we rid ourselves of the plague of the Glazers and INEOS.

05 Jan 2026 23:17:53
Anyone think Mainoo will be fit and available on Wednesday? ??.

06 Jan 2026 06:22:28
It would be a dreadful look for him if he is.

06 Jan 2026 10:27:25
Think there might be a Fletcher or two in midfield ?.

05 Jan 2026 23:11:31


Red Man has written an article entitled, Time to Reflect on Manchester United

06 Jan 2026 11:24:38
Perhaps the Glazers didn't want to sell the whole business, unless someone was going to come up with their asking price of £6bn, which no one was. Perhaps they wanted to stay in to ensure that their property investments in the surrounding area were not jeopardized by a new United owner going in a direction that did not advantage them.

Whether its true or not, I read that United were extremely close to breaching PSR in ETH's last full season and that the cost of firing him at the end of it would have put them over the limit. Before he came on board ETH was rated extremely highly by a number of contributors to this site. And, despite everything else he did actually manage to win a couple of trophies. Even at the end of his last season there were people who felt he'd done enough to get an extra year, despite the fact that during his period in charge the club made some disastrous purchases, which I think is why SJR tried to set up a new regime that would have a coach rather than a manager at the head of the team, i.e someone who had an advisory role but no ultimate say on incomings and outgoings.

The way the club had been run up until SJR's team took over has been well documented and needs no further elaboration. Clearly Berada and his team did not do as much due diligence as they should have done before hiring Amorim. I think they believed him to be the new Mourinho. Unfortunately after years of wasteful spending United no longer has the financial strength to undertake a full squad restructuring in a. single season - choices had to be made - Cunha and Mbuemo were doable deals and were completed. The amount of time it took is neither here nor there. None of us know why it took as long as it did. Lammens looks like a good signing. Dorgu has improved. Sesko looks like a bit of a clunker. We managed to get rid of all our dead wood at least for a season. It wasn't a perfect summer window but it was an improvement on the last decade.

So, Amorim had been given half of what he needed. We all know he needed a midfield fix. We haven't bought a top class long term DM since Carrick. In the end, however, football is a cooperative venture from owners, down through the manager/coach, the players and staff. What is glaringly apparent now is that Amorim is an extremely arrogant and rather immature man who has little to no ability to compromise, or to hold his tongue. The fact that he was prepared to call out his employers in public even though he must surely have known well in advance that few if any funds would be available this January, and that management was dead set on not buying over priced long term second best players to fill a short term need, which is to say, not repeating the sins of the past decade or more, was appallingly injudicious.

Clearly Berada and his team believe that this squad, without additions, and with a light program should be capable of being in the top 5/6, but to do that the coach needs to be flexible and not demand the team play the same system even when its clearly exposing certain players' weaknesses. Yoro is a good example. He's a CB, but he's not the quickest of players. Leaving him to mark speedy wingers is a mistake and it's cost us points.

Now personally I don't think switching to a back 4 will create too many if any problems. Shaw, Dalot and Mazraoui are natural full backs. Shaw is actually quite good going forward and has a decent cross but playing in a back 3 has removed that potential from his game. Even without any new signings with Cas, Bruno, Mainoo, maybe Mount and Ugarte we should have enough to cope for the rest of this season. And then we have Cunha, Mbuemo and Amad all of whom are capable of creating and scoring goals. and have been doing so. If this is obvious to me then it will have been obvious to the board and it should have been obvious to Amorim too, which brings us back to the two main problems. The board failed to do due diligence and Amorim's inflexibility and arrogance. If a coach is so wedded to his system that he's prepared to risk success and the profits that come with that, making the acquisition of the players he needs as the team evolves less likely due to lack of funds, then his arrogance is a major flaw. and one that the club could no longer afford to humor.

06 Jan 2026 13:26:35
Couldn't agree more.

06 Jan 2026 16:13:29
I agree with 99% of that New name. HIS arrogance and naivety have been big problems.

But you say we have enough to cope with the rest of the season. What is coping for you?

I still think when we're in the position we are and with our best players all to return, that it was a bit short-termist to get rid of our manager when we're currently sitting in the European places.

Any manager, not just RA.

05 Jan 2026 18:04:31
Congratulations to the GW20 winner of FOOTBALL RUMORS FPL mini-league :

Real Magid ( More points on the bench )

05 Jan 2026 20:35:34
What a mess we find ourselves in, and most frustratingly it appears to be one entirely of our own making.

Going back to when they extended EtH contract, the main reason I agreed with that at the time was actually because I didn't think EtH was the long term answer at that point. What I did realise though was that in order to rebuild the squad things would need to get worse before they could get better. The club needed to weed out the "wronguns" and start to bring in younger less consistent players who has potential to be developed into the right sort of players we needed.

As for Amorim I liked him as a manager, I felt his ideas were good, he seemed to have a good handle on the dressing room (when was the last time we sacked a manager who HADN'T lost the dressing room) . I felt that overall we were getting better and improving. Yeah results were inconsistent, but you will get that when you have half a squad mostly made up of players who don't have a long term future or who aren't good enough.

The next manager will struggle to get consistent performances for the next 12-18 months while we continue to rebuild the squad.

All that said though the biggest frustration with this situation is that it seems to be born out of personality clashes rather than a failed appointment. Reading between the lines it looks like Wilcocks is the problem, he was one of the main people who clashed with Ashworth that led to his departure, now the biggest issue at the club over the past season appears to be his relationship with the manager. Twice now the club have sacked/removed a highly rated employee and both times it was due to the poor working relationship primarily with Wilcocks.

Hopefully this doesn't derail us too much, ultimately the only way the club gets back to the top is by having their plan and making it work. In the past our mistake was hanging our hopes on a manager to come in and fix everything. When in reality we should be hiring a manager to fit into a bigger plan, that way the manager is changeable without having to deviate from the plan. If that is how we have been running things over the past 18 months then we should be able to hire a manager who fits that plan and the squad we are building. If not then we are back to square one.

05 Jan 2026 22:26:11
You’re right it is a mess Shappy. But it was mess before and will continue to be so.

I’m really surprised and shocked that they decided to let him go today, essentially for speaking against the management. The club seemed to back Amorim through some misguided comments and poor performances. But don’t can’t take these comments…

I didn’t rate him but liked him as a fella plus we had improved, we’re 6th and had some good underlying data while missing key players. The eye test was another story.

I just don’t get the timing. I was sure we’d have a back four Christmas or Summer.

05 Jan 2026 21:15:05
The main problem is Ratcliffe. He started out with the intention of hiring experienced professionals to run the club. Ashworth was key to this, so key that they paid Newcastle millions to get him.

Ashworth is, by all accounts, a pragmatic, detail oriented, realist. Ratcliffe was frustrated that Ashworth wouldn’t give him simple answers to complicated questions about the club, like, how long it would take to get back competing for titles. Wilcox is a blagger. Ratcliffe likes bloggers because they tell him what he wants to hear in ways he can easily understand. Wilcox didn’t clash with Ashworth. He manoeuvred himself into a position where he could take his job, and, alongside his buddy Berrada, used Amorim as the wedge issue to do this.

The ultimate responsibility, however, lies with Ratcliffe. He hired an immensely experienced DoF, and didn’t like the truths Ashworth told him. He was duped by a blagger and made the final decision to back Wilcox’s silly fast track success over the harsh reality presented by Ashworth.

We’re here because Ratcliffe.

05 Jan 2026 21:33:54
Hello Shappy, hope you're well.

You're spot on. The trigger was pulled by a boardroom to save face. This wasnt about results, this was about a manager shining a light on the figures running the club and they couldn't handle it.

Amorim saying "I'm the Man Utd manager, not coach" more than likely means he went to Wilcox and Co. And talked about signings, to which he was told to stay in his lane and coach the players he's given. Back me or sack me message from Amorim.

The many problems I have with this hypocrisy is Ashworth warned about this and as you said, he was outnumbered and sacrificed. Amorim asked to start at the end of the season and was told "now or never". Now they havnt a clue who to choose as his successor so we're going the interim route.

Now I'm all for people changing if they know they've made a mistake, but they're now going back on everything they believed would work, which begs the question, should Omar, Wilcox and Fletcher follow him out the door?

Obviously they won't be going anywhere, but some of the managers rumoured to be in the running would be just if not more vocal than Amorim.

They could have pulled the trigger numerous times, but this isn't about results, its about fragile egos. The Rat and his sidekicks wanted to be shot callers. If they get the next one wrong, they'll brle run out of town.

06 Jan 2026 10:00:37
I'm not sure he was let go specifically for sunday's outburst. Supposedly there was a scheduled meeting between Wilcox and Amorim on Friday to discuss formation / style of play where it was suggested Utd should be making do with what they have without January signings and adapting the formation to better suit what they have.

Apparently Amorim lost it a bit and this reaction didn't go down well. Hence his pretty flat press conference on Friday. Then sunday, where he indirectly referenced Wilcox was interfering.


I just don't think they wanted him to be around to do another press conference tuesday, where there'd just be more questions and likely more negativity.
Hoping for at least a good performance against Burnley but am more concerned about Brighton tbh.

Maybe we'll know after that game what route we're going down. If we can assume it's a contract until the end of the season I'm guessing it has to be someone free now. Perhaps Ollie, Carrick or De Zerbi.

05 Jan 2026 18:51:04
Atleast we can have a good natter on. Live chat on Wednesday
Never a dull moment
Good luck Darren.

05 Jan 2026 19:48:58
See you there Mal

Expecting a nice 3-0/4-0 post manager boost.