And good bye to ETH. Should have been done this summer. Wasted year.

EtH officially sacked. Reinforces how ridiculous the summer tango was.

RvN officially named as interim.

Also I want to reiterate how insanely stupid the idea that a manager cannot go into the final season of his contract. What was accomplished by extending him other than wasting more money? It did not stop the game by game speculation on his job one single bit.

Can't say he's blameless but I do feel bad for him. I think he's shouldered a lot more of the blame than he has warranted. The media pressure that has fallen on him has been over the top, in my opinion. To be fired a day after watching your best players completely forget the basics of shooting at a soccer goal yet again makes me feel a little worse for him than maybe I otherwise would have. But ultimately, some of his decisions didn't do him any favors and the high number of times that United looked uncompetitive (or too competitive against clubs they should be hammering) deservedly falls on him so...I get it.

But, I honestly don't know if anyone can succeed at United in today's world given United's recent history. It will take a very special person to. Here's what's going to happen...

RvN will step as interim and performances/results will likely improve if for no other reason that players usually respond positively anytime there's a managerial change. Even if performances don't improvem the media won't focus their full attention on him unless that interim tag comes off. If he does well, there will be the inevitable intense focus on whether or not he should be the permanent manager (like Ole) and most will likely land on the opinion that he shouldn't (like Ole). The ones that think he should be given the job will likely only be saying that because they want to be contrarian and drive engagement.

Whether he is given the job full-time or not will be irrelevant to how the media will treat the next manager. If it is RvN they'll start by saying he should have never been given the job. If it's not RvN they'll still almost definitely do the same thing no matter who it is. Any person that United could reasonably get will come with flaws and/or questions about their suitability. And if that person doesn't experience immediate success, those flaws and questions will instantly become a part of the 24/7 United news cycle that drives so much traffic, engagement, and revenue then everyone lusts for. The manager and the players (many of which are young) will once again be constantly ridiculed and questioned by way too many people who are paid way too much money to give an opinion that is of a little to no value. (Honestly, the amount of former players, writers, pundits, and whatever else exists in this hellscape that has been created who are fawned over for their opinions is baffling. I do not care nor need to know what every former player thinks and feels about every minor minutiae of United's existence. It doesn't matter if that former player is a former United player, a former rival player, or some guy who knocked around League 2 his entire career...I don't care and don't understand why anyone else does either.)

Rinse and repeat. Odds are that the cycle can be broken but it feels a bit like the odds of winning the lottery. Like you know someone will win it but you also know that you won't actually run into the person who does.

Would you work at a job that openly told you that after 2 years on the job, they wanted you to stay for another year but weren't sure they wanted you beyond that? I know for sure I would not. I highly doubt that EtH or any manager would be OK walking into the last year of a contract without any job security beyond that. If my employer today doesn't know if they want me working from them a year from now, then I'm hard core looking for a new job or outright quitting if I know I can get a new one easily.

Can argue whether EtH should have been kept after the FA Cup but once they decided to keep him, they had to offer some sort of extension if they wanted to actually keep him.

Suppose it's never too soon to talk about the next potential manager. Xavi, Thomas Frank, Ruben Amorim, and Julian Nagelsmann are on the first list I've seen. I don't see Nagelsmann leaving Germany the year before the World Cup. He would be my top choice but highly unlikely in my opinion.

Of the other 3, I guess Amorim. I appreciate what Frank has done at Brentford but think the United media circus might eat him alive. Xavi...his Barcelona days weren't overwhelmingly good enough to overlook the fact his managerial career has been very short and really only at Barca. Plus Flick seems to have taken his team and made them much better.

I agree with you on this. For some reason, some people act like Armageddon happens if a top 6 manager goes into the final year of their deal. Why? It happens in other sports all the time when a team isn't quite to the point where they want to get rid of the manager going into the final year. To take a well-known example, the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys is in the final year of his deal (spoiler alert: he's eventually getting fired, too). The Cowboys are not exactly having a problem fending off the Eagles from taking McCarthy, are they? Are we really that worried that Chelsea would sneak in and hire EtH away if it happens to go right? It's conceivable that the manager of Manchester United will go from the hot seat to world class (it did famously happen once) but it's a lot more conceivable that the seat gets even hotter and you are looking to get rid of them sooner rather than later. The main difference is relegation makes EPL managers' jobs more tenuous during the season, but that's more of a reason to not give extensions for no reason. I guess the other difference is it is easier to turn over your roster in most U.S. sports, but baseball is difficult to unload bad contracts, and they have managers enter final seasons.

yes. i would work my job. i have a contract. this whole must have multiple years left on a contract was invented by agents.

I don't think it has anything to do with fending off potential suitors, but more to do with keeping a personyou want to work for you.

And while I can't find a resource to verify this, it feels like saying "All the time" is a gross exaggeration. I would guess that well over 90% of current NFL, NBA, and MLB coaches are not in the final year of their contract. But maybe I'm wrong. I'm also not sure I'd point towards the Dallas Cowboys as a viable example of it working well when a team does so.

To me it simply comes down to making an offer that is compelling enough to keep the person that you ostensibly want to coach your team. Once Ineos decided they wanted to keep EtH (again...that part we question), it then comes down to what it takes to keep him. If I'm EtH, I absolutely am not staying at United for another year if I don't have some sort of extension of my guaranteed contract or an increase in salary to do so. Because I know I can go get a job somewhere else that will give me at least a longer term if not a salary increase and I have no desire to work at a place that doesn't want me beyond some short term tenure. I think a number of people, coaches included, have no desire to work in the short term for a company who is making no signal at all of committing to them in the long-term.

I actually have done in that in the past. I've left a company that was sitting on their hands regarding a contract extension for a company that offered an indefinite extension even though I had 6 months remaining on my contract. Maybe it's a European thing, I don't know but I feel like it's a prevalent (and logical) thing.

I guess that is where we differ. I think it is extremely illogical to extend someone just because.


But, ultimately, that is a minor side bar. The whole thing was a mistake. So now we move on, again.

Dre likes the warm fuzzies. "Oh, we want to hold hands and be best friends! Let's pretend that is true (even though we were just talking to your replacements a week ago)." LOL.

It's not extremely common because usually you go ahead and fire people before the final year happens. But in the instance where the final year comes up and there is ambivalence, they go into the final year.

If someone is looking to hire away a coach you want to keep, you may have to make an offer (it happened to a team in the last few years a lot of people here are pretty familiar with; also with a poor outcome).

The cold fact is extensions go poorly probably 90% of the time. Most cintracts end with a firing. So doing one before you have to is basically stupid.

lmao...ok?

I guess my ultimate point is that the club just fired 250 regular people with regular jobs in order to save approximately 10 million pounds a year. So triggering an extension that costs in the neighborhood of that same amount extra over just going into the last year for an optics move that didn't even work was objectively pretty stupid.

🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Manchester United working on deal to appoint Ruben Amorim as head coach. #MUFC ready to pay €10m release clause + in talks with #SportingCP to finalise. 39yo Portuguese open to accepting move. W/ @AdamCrafton_ @lauriewhitwell @TheAthleticFC https://t.co/zDxEd0SmBa

— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) October 28, 2024

Escalating quickly

🚨 Ruben Amorim has verbally agreed to become Manchester United manager.

Sources in Portugal say Amorim has already said yes to #MUFC.

Manchester United and Sporting now working on compensation. Amorim has a €10m clause, as @David_Ornstein first called. pic.twitter.com/8pDnDs5Nx1

— Ben Jacobs (@JacobsBen) October 28, 2024

Yeah and I guess what I'm saying is that we don't know that it was just an optics move. It's extremely possible, IMO, that EtH wouldn't have agreed to stay without the extension. And if you've already made the decision that he was the best option (again...a questionable conclusion especially in hindsight), then it was the cost of hiring the best option.

Anyway, whatever...let's go Ruben Amorim I guess. Maybe rent your new home though rather than buy.

He was under contract. You don't get to leave immediately just because you want to. See Ashworth, Dan.

So you're suggesting that United would have forced him to work as a manager because he had a contract till May 2025 even if he said he wanted to leave? Because that is just not at all how the real life works. No employer does that because the cost and risk of keeping an employee who actively doesn't want to work for you is high. Especially in a position as important as manager of a football club. You negotiate an exit as swiftly as possible. See Ashworth, Dan.

Now Dan had the benefit/curse of a 2nd employer who wanted his services and could bear the cost of any exit that his current employer wanted. Unfortunately for Dan, his current employer knew that he was wanted and used their position to prolong the negotiation and milk more compensation out of the negotiation. Erik would not have had such a benefit but that also means that United would have had no cow to milk. Some agreement would have been reached, they would have framed it as a "mutual decision by both parties to part ways". It literally happens all the time.

I'm suggesting that he had a contract, and if he wanted to get out of the contract, it would cost him or his next potential employer money to get out of the contract. That's how contracts work. If he or another club wanted to pay us 10 mil release (hypothetically) to have him leave, that's 25 mil better than the 6 mil we have to pay him for this year plus the 9 mil we have to pay him for next year. And if he wanted to leave for free, he could, but he'd have had to work this year plus next year if the option were exercised (which quickly became a moot point). Or if ten Hag wanted to make a deal where he left for free, maybe they would agree to tear up the contract, which would be more favorable than paying to get out of it, but he'd be leaving a lot of money on the table because his next job would not have been likely to pay United money.

Jadon Sancho wasn't real thrilled to be here, but guess what? He had to show up and live with it until he got a move because he was under contract. Golden handcuffs.

Is Amorim the guy? I'm seeing tweets that sound like this isn't quite the done deal that we were lead to believe.

Not sure what you are seeing. The most recent stuff from The Athletic, the Telegraph, Simon Stone of BBC, even Fabrizio have linking United to Amorim, although no one was as definitive as Ben Jacobs (who I started following during the sale talks because he seemed to have sources with both Ratcliffe side and Qatar side), but I'd put him as more of a second tier behind the above. So I don't know, most stuff still seems to be tentatively pointing to Amorim.

Edit: that said, I was convinced at one point in the summer that he was going to Liverpool, and obviously that didn't happen; we will see.

Well clearly this is going nowhere and I think I can safely say that no one wants to continue to see us bicker so let's move on and say that I'm super interested in how Ineos handle this transition to a new coach.

They're getting lots of grief for extending EtH and then firing him which is easy to understand. I do think that Berrada and Ashworth not being at the club when the EtH decision had to be made should be taken into account. But telling that they were ready to let EtH going now even if they weren't heavily involved in keeping him to begin with. Amorim coming out so quickly as their preferred option was either 1) a leak that they didn't want to come out and pisses them off (which would be another black mark, IMO) or 2) strategic to show control and move on quickly and confidently with a new plan. If it's the latter and they actually do execute this quickly, then it will be a vast process improvement over previous big decisions that were made pre-Ineos. But if they don't move quickly now that it's out, then it will be another black mark on their tenure that can't be explained away by the absence of Ashworth and Berrada.

It's coming out now because they have to do club-to-club negotiations. Sporting doesn't have any need to keep it secret.

Disclaimer: Yes, it's the Daily Mail, but I think Chris Wheeler is pretty good, so I follow him. So that's my disclaimer; I think Chris Wheeler is pretty good, but he's at the Daily Mail which as a publication can be questionable:

Reports in Portugal say Amorim could travel to Manchester as early as tomorrow and be in charge against Chelsea at the weekend. Sporting are already looking at replacements with B-team boss Joao Pereira and Amorim's assistant Carlos Fernandes the favourites #mufc

— Chris Wheeler (@ChrisWheelerDM) October 29, 2024

Now that would impress me. No sitting back and observing. It's your job. Get stuck in immediately.

Speaking of people not doing their jobs, Luke Shaw had another setback; at this rate he will be fit again just in time for the World Cup.

🚨⛔️ Luke Shaw has suffered a setback as he’s not ready to return yet, it was confirmed by Erik ten Hag in his post-West Ham press conference.

No Shaw available for van Nistelrooy now, as @samuelluckhurst reports. pic.twitter.com/37armEeMvp

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) October 29, 2024

My son the Chelsea fan sent me this today.

I mentally wrote Luke Shaw off months ago. Diogo Dalot is our LB as far as I'm concerned and Lisandro Martinez is his backup.

Here we go:

🚨🔴 BREAKING: Manchester United are set to pay €10m exit clause for Rúben Amorim to become new manager, here we go!

Sporting confirm formal communication received from #MUFC for Amorim to be appointed.

Amorim has already said yes to Man Utd proposal and project. pic.twitter.com/v17tR1oqlm

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) October 29, 2024

(I saw Ben Jacobs post this 1 min earlier):

🚨 BREAKING: Sporting confirm Ruben Amorim will join Manchester United.#MUFC has formally requested to pay the €10m release clause. pic.twitter.com/Xe2z1oGZZj

— Ben Jacobs (@JacobsBen) October 29, 2024

It doesn't bother me that much, but a lot of people on X were hating on the rumored lineup (which of course was the actual lineup because we are more leaky than a Swiss cheese boat lol):

Ruud names his Reds XI 🔴📋#MUFC || #CarabaoCup

— Manchester United (@ManUtd) October 30, 2024

Highlight reel goal by Casemiro from way outside the box

Garnacho tap-in from Dalot. New manager bounce is real lol.

Goal Leicester.

Onana: "Miss me yet?"

Bruno free kick. 3-1.

Entertaining game. Have it on while I'm doing something else, and it's more distracting than I thought it would be.