Manchester United: The big danger to Ruben Amorim ahead of a huge summer at Old Trafford | OneFootball

Amorim at risk of being the next manager chewed up and spat out by a club that has sunk to a new low

It has not gone unnoticed at Manchester United that £86million flop Antony has scored and been named man of the match in each of his first three appearances for Real Betis since joining the Spanish club on loan in January.

The Brazilian winger became the fourth most expensive player in Premier League history when he joined United from Ajax in 2022 but has a compelling claim to be the top-flight's worst-ever pound-for-pound signing, having managed two goals in his previous 59 league games.

Head coach Ruben Amorim increasingly appears to be the latest victim of United's culture of doom after overseeing an eighth defeat in 14 league games at Tottenham last weekend, in a scrappy contest that must have been one of the lowest-quality meetings between the two great clubs in decades.

Amorim joined United in November as a celebrated young coach - en route to another title with Sporting and on Manchester City's radar as a successor to Pep Guardiola - but it is impossible to make the case that he has improved the team in any way.

Amorim's squad is both desperately poor and wildly unsuited to his preferred set-up

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The Glazers and part-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who now fronts the club's football operations, bear ultimate responsibility for United's perma-malaise, although Amorim's insistence on sticking with his 3-4-3 approach is contributing to the short-term pain.

The 40-year-old has insisted he will not change his approach - suggesting on Sunday that the rest of the season is about instilling "the idea and the system" in his players - and plainly believes he is working for the greater good of the club.

The problem is that Amorim's squad is both desperately poor and wildly unsuited to his preferred set-up.

With the exception of Harry Maguire and Lisandro Martinez, who is out for the rest of the season with a cruciate ligament injury, none of United's centre-halves are well-equipped for a back-three, while he needs at least two more specialist wing-backs after the January addition of Patrick Dorgu.

If Amorim's decision to use midfielder Kobbie Mainoo as a false nine ahead of Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee in recent weeks is anything to go by, he also needs a new centre-forward, as well as a midfield refresh.

Casemiro's announcement this week that he is happy to see out the final 18 months of his lavish United contract presumably went down like a lead balloon with the manager and board.

In short, Amorim must be backed to transform the squad if he is to make a success of this project and do it his way, but United's owners look ill-equipped to provide it, as they carefully navigate profit and sustainability rules while Ratcliffe oversees a series of cuts to club staff.

United part-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe must back Amorim to transform the squad

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The danger for Amorim is that he is currently acting from a position of strength, safe in the knowledge that he is unlikely to be sacked this season, even if results continue to nosedive.

At some point, presumably from the start of next season, however, results will have to matter again, and if Amorim still lacks the players he needs to make his system work, he will have to throw in the towel or compromise, which is precisely what did for his predecessor Erik ten Hag.

The Dutchman arrived in Manchester with grand ambitions to replicate the possession-based approach which he had coached so successfully at Ajax, but ended up conceding that United could "never" play that way "with the collection of players" at his disposal.

The end result was Ten Hag's rudderless group of individuals, so lacking identity or a coherent plan, and serious damage to his reputation as a coach, despite leading the club to two trophies.

As it stands, Amorim could walk away next week or at the end of the campaign with his reputation still intact, so entrenched is United's chaos, but if he stays put without significant backing, he is at risk of being the next manager to be chewed up and spat out by the club.