It’s over, at last. Ruben Amorim has, finally, been put out of his misery and leaves Manchester United as one of the worst managers in the club’s history.
United’s draw at Leeds, Amorim’s final game in charge, saw his tenure ended with just 24 wins from his 63 games across all competitions.
That is a win-rate worse than Erik ten Hag, worse than Louis van Gaal. The only manager with one lower since Sir Alex Ferguson was Ralf Rangnick, who was only an interim boss, and at least he only took charge for less than 30 games. And if you focus on just the league, Amorim was worse than him too.
You have to go a long way back to find United managers as bad as Amorim.
In United’s top-flight history, only five managers have a worse win rate: AH Halbut, the club’s first manager, who was a secretary back then, who left in 1900; Jack Robson, who left in 1921; Hebert Bamlett, gone in 1931; Walter Crickmer, gone in 1945, and Wilf McGuinness, who made way for Matt Busby in 1970.
Since Amorim’s first game in charge in November 2024, of all the ever-present Premier League clubs, only Wolves (39), West Ham (45) and Tottenham (46) have racked up fewer points than United (58), won fewer league games (15) and conceded more league goals (72). Two of those three clubs will probably get relegated this season. Under Amorim, they had a league goal difference of -6.
Ruben Amorim has finally been sacked by Manchester United – and is set to go down as one of the worst managers in the club’s history
Only Rangick’s much-maligned side in 2021-22 (1.38) scored fewer goals per game in the Premier League than Amorim’s (1.4) while the Portuguese took charge of a side that conceded more per game (1.53) than any United team in the competition’s history.
No wonder, then, that his side kept just seven clean sheets in all of his 47 league matches in charge, the lowest percentage of all United’s Premier League managers. During Amorim’s time in the league, only West Ham have kept fewer.
Amorim was a disaster. He started badly and got worse. He made the worst start of any United manager in more than 100 years after he lost of his first eight league matches and, after taking over 12 games into the season, ended the campaign with the club posting their lowest ever points tally in a Premier League season (42), suffered their most defeats (15), their most at home (9) and finished in their lowest ever position in 15th.
The six defeats he suffered last December, not long after taking the job, was the most the club had suffered in a single month since 1930 and conceded the joint-most goal (18) since 1964. Those nine league defeats at Old Trafford were also the most in a single campaign since 1963.
Even a summer, a fresh start, and a transfer window in which they splashed more than £215million on new signings like Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha did nothing to spark any sort of change.
Seven points from the first opening six games of this season marked United’s poorest start to a league season in 33 years.
His refusal to move away from his beloved back three, a formation he started with in all but two of his Premier League games, continued to suffocate and restrict a squad of players not suited for such a system. The first time he moved to a back four, United beat Newcastle at home and kept one of his seven clean sheets.
It was clear, too, he couldn’t settle on a group of players he could trust. During his time at the club, only Spurs and Chelsea made more changes to their starting line-up than Amorim. In the end, United realised they couldn’t trust their tinker man either. The only surprise is that it took so long.
