Manchester United has allowed coach Ruben Amorim to reshape the club to his desire. But after 3 matches of the new season, what Amorim and his students have shown is very gloomy.
Amorim's image avoiding his players in a penalty shootout at Blundell Park shows a huge division between the Portuguese coach and the team. This comes after he was given the power to drop unwanted players.
Amorim admitted at Blundell Park that his players were not playing for him, nor did they follow his instructions, in a meaningful statement that "they were talking too much".
The Portuguese captain explained: "It's not just the space, it's the way we started the game without any intensity. We are completely disoriented by all the ideas of pressure. It's hard to explain. That is what they have said too much."
When a coach publicly admits that the players are no longer fighting for themselves, the ending is almost set. The question now is not whether Amorim's project will collapse or not, but when.
And the big question for both Amorim and Sir Jim Ratcliffe is how long they will be patient with this project, when things are getting so bad that it is difficult to save them.
Last season, the "Red Devils" wasted two international breaks before deciding to part ways with Erik ten Hag. They then had to appoint Ruud van Nistelrooy as interim manager while waiting for Amorim.
This year, that gloomy scenario is at risk of repeating itself. The first break will start after the home match against Burnley this weekend. Both Amorim and the club know it is the ideal time to cut if things don't improve.
Because, right after returning, Man United had to enter a series of harsh challenges with Manchester City and Chelsea - opponents who could sink them deeper into crisis.
Ratcliffe, despite having publicly supported Amorim many times, would find it difficult to be patient forever. The person he chose is becoming the shoulder carryer of countless bad records. Every Man United match has statistics having to flip every old page in history to find such a disastrous version.
Last season, Amorim created an embarrassing record hat-trick: the lowest total points, lowest ranking and lowest number of goals in the Premier League era.
The poor form did not stop there. Amorim's winning rate is only 35.6% across all fronts and 24.1% in the Premier League - lower than any other Man United manager in the Premier League era.
Even Ralf Rangnick (37.9%) or David Moyes (52.9%) have more positive figures. If Man United cannot beat Burnley this weekend, Amorim will become the coach with the "Red Devils" lowest winning percentage since 1931.
The reality is that Amorim has won just seven Premier League games, taking fewer points than he has played in. And the penalty shootout defeat to Grimsby in the Carabao Cup made history as Man United's first defeat to a fourth-tier side in a cup competition.
The disastrous figures above not only exposed Amorim's deadlock, but also dragged Ratcliffe into the storm of criticism. Earlier this year, a co-owner of Man United admitted that he was no longer interested in the media, simply because he was bored of having to read too many attacks on him.
Previously, the media mainly revolved around cost cuts and the dismissal of hundreds of employees of the British billionaire. But now, each disastrous failure of the team has further excavated the image of an ineffective operator in the eyes of the public.
Ratcliffe has put a lot of faith, both financially and spiritually, in Amorim. If Amorim is sacked in less than a year, it would be a heavy blow to the billionaire's reputation and strategy. On the contrary, continuing to blindly support in the context of Man United's continuous decline may be more harmful in the long run.
