When Ruben Amorim stood before the press after Manchester United’s last Premier League match at Old Trafford, the moment carried an echo of history.
Thirty-two years earlier, Sir Alex Ferguson had labeled a seven-day collapse “the most traumatic” week in modern United memory, after three successive defeats gifted the league title to Leeds.
Ferguson, though, could still cling to the comfort of trophies already in the cabinet and the assurance that the breakthrough would arrive soon enough. It did—just one season later.
Amorim has no such refuge.
On May 25, with United reeling from another dismal campaign, the Portuguese coach offered words that felt as raw as they were necessary.
“I want to apologise for this season,” he said. “Now, we have to make a choice: either we stay stuck in the past, fighting each other, or we stick together and move forward. After this disaster season, I want to tell you: the good days are coming.”
It was the kind of candor supporters often crave but rarely hear. Amorim speaks with an honesty that makes journalists lean forward in their chairs and gives fans, at least briefly, reason to believe. Yet the very strength of that openness is also its trap. Sooner or later, the future he promises arrives—and the question becomes whether it measures up.
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Nine months into his tenure, Amorim is finding out just how merciless Manchester United can be. Few institutions in world football are dissected with such intensity, where every stumble feels magnified and every word weighed against the shadow of Ferguson’s era.
“I am always under pressure to perform,” Amorim admitted before United’s clash with Arsenal. “It is impossible to be here and not feel the pressure every day.”
The record so far is unflattering with 15 wins, 16 defeats, and the most painful of them all—a Europa League final loss to Tottenham in Bilbao. United have taken their coach on a global tour, from Malaysia to Hong Kong to the United States, drawing tens of thousands of fans at every stop. The crowds swell, the demands multiply, but the results remain stubbornly inconsistent.
In America last summer, the Premier League’s Summer Series offered a snapshot of United’s enduring pull. Sparse stadiums for early kickoffs gave way to near-50,000 attendances once United took the field. This is the paradox Amorim now lives with: wherever the club goes, the world still shows up, expecting a show.
What United supporters are asking, though, is simpler and far more difficult—when will the show return to Old Trafford itself?