Amorim’s biggest task is to finally move Man Utd on from Sir Alex Ferguson

Portuguese this week becomes club’s sixth permanent manager since the great Scot’s departure and must break miserable cycle of failure

OK, so let’s go again: Once upon a time in south-west Manchester… take six.
Like a movie production that goes horribly over budget, through multiple directors and numerous reshoots, Manchester United’s attempts to deliver worthy sequels to the original Sir Alex Ferguson franchise have been a lesson in how not to do it.
The protagonists have changed but the script has remained much the same over the past 11 years: the same failures, problems and complaints repeating themselves over and over again and the cumulative damage becoming greater with every season that passes.
From David Moyes to Erik ten Hag via Louis van Gaal, José Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and a plethora of interims – the latest of whom, Ruud van Nistelrooy, took charge of his final game on Sunday – United have scrambled for solutions only to keep arriving at the same, miserable outcome. Rinse, cycle, repeat – despite all the money thrown around.
Now it is the turn of the young Portuguese coach Ruben Amorim, the sixth permanent manager of the post-Ferguson era, who has been tasked with trying to bring some sense and order to European football’s great chaos machine.
The appeal is obvious. Anyone who can turn this oil tanker around and put the club back on top will be assured almost messianic status from arguably the biggest global supporter base in domestic world football.
For the time being, though, fans would doubtless just settle for players who worked harder, the start of a coherent playing identity and the promise of something better.
Some United fans got themselves very excited by the sight of Amorim’s Sporting beating Manchester City 4-1 on Tuesday but that was a team built in the 39-year-old Portuguese’s design over four-and-a-half years and which has benefited from consistently smart recruitment.
At Old Trafford, Amorim is taking over a club who have finished, on average, 22 points behind the Premier League champions over the previous 11 campaigns – the equivalent of seven wins per season – and who are currently 13 points behind leaders Liverpool after 11 matches.
He inherits a squad heavy on wingers and low on full-backs who might more easily convert to the wing-backs he favours in his preferred 3-4-2-1 system.
He will encounter players who are happy to run forwards but less inclined to track back, others who are long past their best or were never good enough to begin with, some who struggle to follow tactical instruction and plenty who are short on confidence or who have long outstayed their welcome. And that is before we get to the issue of so few being able to consistently stay fit.
Amorim comes with a burgeoning reputation – a shrewd coach and a people person whose communication skills are sure to face an acid test – but for all the acclaim being attached to this young, progressive coach who offers a step change in profile to his predecessors, it is also clear he cannot do it alone.
Even if the Portuguese gets a lot right over the course of the next six to 12 months, even if he improves players in a way that has seldom happened previously and gets them playing to a cohesive, identifiable style, there will always be a ceiling unless the club start to buy the right players.
For all his powers, Pep Guardiola would not have been able to win six Premier League titles if Manchester City had recruited as poorly as United. Jürgen Klopp would not have made Premier League and Champions League winners of Liverpool if the club had signed dud after dud.
Arsenal would not have been knocking on the door over the past two seasons if Mikel Arteta had been handed a litany of listless recruits, the like of which have been walking through Old Trafford’s doors en masse for a decade.
Here is a game for you: try to list United’s best 10 signings in the post-Ferguson era. Bruno Fernandes would probably top the list, but it is a reflection of the state of things that players like Diogo Dalot and Luke Shaw would probably be in there. That is the same Shaw who has made just 12 more starts for United than Fernandes, despite joining the club five-and-a-half years before the Portugal midfielder.
Now compare the best 10 signings made over the same period by Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal or any other number of Premier League clubs for that matter – Aston Villa, Brighton, Brentford for example. It very quickly reinforces just how bad the recruitment has been at United.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s arrival as co-owner in February and the appointment of a new football hierarchy was supposed to usher in change in that regard but the decision to keep faith with Ten Hag and allow him to spend another £200 million in the summer only to sack the Dutchman two months later was one that could yet hurt Amorim.
On the one hand, there are more players now at his disposal who he might not necessarily want. Equally, with the purse strings even tighter and United at risk of missing out on European football this season, it remains to be seen how much wriggle room Amorim will have to reshape a squad that seems to be in a state of perpetual rebuilding.
In the meantime, Amorim can only work with what he has at his disposal. United hope and believe he can drive change, but no one at Old Trafford is kidding themselves that this is a quick fix.