Its should be said that Amorim's time was a disaster
I wasn't great, but I don't think it was the complete disaster it's being painted as either.
He oversaw a clear out of deadwood and high earner but under performance while at the same time INEOS were fixing Uniteds finances. Which are in a significantly healthier position now than when they came in.
I don't think he came in at a good time to revolutionise the style of play while everything else was going on. But our league position this season shows the improvement, we are right where we deserve to be IMO, especially when you compare the games we're dropping points in to those Villa did last season (they finished 6th).
Financially, we're now in a much stronger place, and if we secure European football next season, we'll have a healthy amount to spend in the summer which will hopefully help our next manager bring in the players he needs. But I think we'd have found things easier if we didn't change as much all at once and brought in a manager more suited to the players we had left after the clearout. What Amorim needed was almost an entirely new squad, both starting 11 and backup players. We were never going to do that in 2,3 even 4 windows.
So this comes down on the board, however, the board cannot be blamed for Amorim airing private issues publically, that was deliberate by Amorim and he either was forcing himself out, or making a risky power play for more control, which he wanted but never had. If it was the latter, he played the wrong hand, but either way, a manager airing these issues will not last long afterwards.
His spell was most certainly not great, whatever the reasons, but I didn't dislike the guy. He had to go, but it probably would have seemed less chaotic if he went after the Europa final loss or earlier in the season. I thought he could have worked with more time and with different circumstances, but the he had the hand he was dealt and that's life.
There was definitely a breakdown in his relationship with Wilcox and other people in the senior management team, results wise,, while there are some frustrating games we've dropped points in, if you asked me at the start of the season, 6th at the start of Jan and 1 win from 4th, I'd have been pleased with that as progress. The target this season from what I understand was always Europa League.
I just hope we don't start dropping down the table now we're going to change tactics again, and I still don't trust a lot of these players to deliver consistently, their heads drop easily, even in games where we score first, we look nervous after going ahead. Was that on Amorim? I'm not sure it was.
I think it's a mentality issue coupled with having a poor midifelder. But maybe if we go back to 4-3-3 and midfield 3 will be more secure and it might be the route Mainoo needs to get back going.
