One of the world’s biggest clubs loses at home to a struggling team. There is talk that the beaten manager might have to go. The unusual aspect this time was that Ruben Amorim instigated it. His reaction to West Ham’s 2-0 win at Old Trafford was to say Manchester United “need to change a lot of things during the summer”. He cast further doubt on his own position. “If we start like this, or if the feeling is still here, we should give the space to different persons,” he said.
If the theory has been that Ange Postecoglou, whose Tottenham team are the only side below United in the table who are staying up, could win the Europa League and be sacked, Amorim seemed to suggest he might suffer the same fate. Not, perhaps, if co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has his way. He said in March that Amorim was “doing a great job in the circumstances”. If that flew in the face of results, some circumstances have changed: United have since progressed to the Europa League final, only Postecoglou’s terrible Tottenham separating them from a return to the Champions League. They have got still poorer in the Premier League.
