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It’s another one of those moments where Reuben Amorim tries to create a new future, only to have history – and a more troubled present – impose itself on events.
The Manchester United the manager will not use Marcus Rashford for the seventh consecutive gameafter the England striker was ruled out for Sunday due to illness. There was a lot of doubt whether Amorim would play him anyway, but the odds mattered Liverpool‘s preparations, with Rashford being one player, even Arne Slott’s most experienced defenders had some trepidation. The 27-year-old scored more goals against Liverpool than any other club, with seven goals, many of them big moments for different managers.
One was the key score in a 2-1 win that was also Erik ten Hag’s first win as United manager.
How could Amorim make such an intervention in his first game against Liverpool this Sunday. Rashford’s illness caps another week of headlines for the wrong reasons, including the revelation that the forward has turned down three lucrative offers from the Saudi Pro League. He just wants a top club, if he wants to leave… which is looking increasingly likely. There are many in the United dressing room who are still stunned by the manager’s treatment of the players, The Independent he understands.
That’s probably part of the point. Amorim’s turn after a dismal 2-0 defeat to Newcastle Unitedthat “this club needs a shock”, already looks like one that could define his tenure. The question is whether it will be good or bad.
The club didn’t quite respond to a shock 5-0 at home to Liverpool in October 2021, 4-0 in April 2022 or, at worst, 7-0 in March 2023. It says a lot that it certainly wouldn’t be a shock if we see the like this weekend, or even something that tops Ten Hag’s worst humiliation. That was exactly the direction of the two clubs, which is far from the fact that the results of this season are wild contrasts.
Amazingly, between 1953 and 2021, there were only two meetings between Liverpool and United that involved wins by more than three goals. The teams shared a 4-0 record each, with Liverpool coming in 1990-91 and United in 2002-03.
Amorim, meanwhile, devises a way to prevent the fourth in just three and a half years. That’s too bad, considering the first 35 minutes against Newcastle were so alarming.
There is something bigger in the history of this rivalry, which again points to the future.
As hard as things have been for those at Anfield in the two decades of Sir Alex Ferguson’s dominance, there has never been anything quite like this. Liverpool usually liked United to play; an uplifting positive for one club, an aggravating sour note for another.
Humiliation was rarely felt. There were too many other emotions at play. The foundation was there to be rebuilt eventually.
That is why this is even more worrying for United, but also shameful. They consoled themselves with similar defiance during Liverpool’s two decades of dominance in the 1970s and 1980s. United have always raised him for this rivalry, which can be seen in winning heroes such as Jimmy Greenhoff and Gordon Strachan.
The recent humiliations are therefore just another sign of the severity of this decline, which is actually even worse given the economics of the modern game. In a world where the league table has a 90 percent correlation with the clubs’ collective wages, United is this bad really shouldn’t be possible.
It is an illustration of how obscenely wasteful the club has been over 10 years, but also why Amorim has been given the power to finally break that cycle. That “shock” he talked about actually goes beyond results and performance. These are serious changes. That’s what Amorim is trying to do now. Some at the club even think he should move on.
United are notorious in this post-Ferguson slump, which they badly need, but that doesn’t mean the former manager’s emotional example can’t be used. Amorim could have done the August 1988 defiance.
“This is not just a job for me,” Ferguson said at the time. “That’s the mission. I’m dead serious about it. Some people would find that too serious. We’ll get there, trust me. And when that happens, life will change for Liverpool and everyone else – dramatically.”
At the time, Ferguson was in the process of overhauling United’s structure from top to bottom, starting with a dressing room he considered culturally toxic. Amorim must do it even faster, and yet with undoubtedly more problems and obstacles.
This is why some argue that there is no internal concern about the head coach’s approach, even if there is an acceptance that performances “shouldn’t be this bad”. There is a view that this form is only a product of late decisions. Amorim, according to one insider, makes “big calls to the locker room” that are “real calls.” The problem, as always in these situations, is that these aren’t necessarily popular calls given the team’s existing chemistry. The gloomy atmosphere at the club and the way Ineos is cutting budgets also contributed to this.
United are in another negative cycle in that sense, which needs to be reversed. As Liverpool illustrated in Jurgen Klopp’s early years, better results on the pitch lead to improved results off it. It’s a formula that can “shoot off like a rocket”, to put it to a senior person, if you get the right manager. All this only accelerates the need for serious changes in the United dressing room.
There, Amorim also suffers from the club’s modern history of decision-making, and in particular the latest call-up.
There’s actually an argument that Ineos’ first summer was one of the most expensive of the entire post-Ferguson era. The decision to stick with Ten Haag but also commit to certain players he wanted to potentially bring the club back for another year or more. This meant that any new manager had to change things without a pre-season, but with a squad built even more according to different profiles, and harder to change because of it. That makes this January much more difficult, which raises the question of whether Amorim makes it unnecessarily difficult for himself by persisting with a system that does not suit the team.
The simple answer is that a coach should only coach and manage what he has to go through.
A more nuanced answer is to actually look across the street. When Pep Guardiola arrived at Manchester City, he said he needed 10 new players. He only got five, which meant his rookie season in 2016-17 was extremely underwhelming. Guardiola still dogmatically persisted with his philosophy, in order to root the idea.
It still wasn’t nearly as bad as this United one, which creates other pressures. These pressures create the need for short-term compromises, which inhibit long-term work. It’s just another negative cycle that Ten Hag may never get out of.
On Sunday, Amorim badly needs to get out of this series, but Liverpool could somehow make it worse; maybe even worse than 7-0. The United manager needs that spirit of defiance that has defined this game in the past. He needs history to work for him, to use the present for the future.