“If I had known about this issue before I might have rejected the job offer. This is the worst thing INOES can do the club and it is affecting us adversely but I’ll try everything I can to get this team back on track” – This is according to Ruben Amorim as a recent admission from his sheds light on a significant error made by Ineos during the month of September , a decision that Manchester United is now feeling the repercussions of.

When a club changes its manager mid-season, it signals that things have gone terribly wrong. This was certainly the case for Ineos and Manchester United.

The 2023/24 season was disastrous for United, as they finished in eighth place in the Premier League. However, Erik ten Hag managed to secure a 2-1 win against Manchester City in the FA Cup final, which likely spared him from an immediate dismissal.

Following this, Ineos stepped in to restructure the club’s sporting operations, a plan that was quickly undone with the departure of Dan Ashworth. It seemed like a fruitless effort to support the wrong manager, as Ten Hag was ultimately sacked at the end of October.

Despite another expensive summer transfer window, it was clear that Ten Hag was failing, and his dismissal should have come much earlier. But the club waited until October 28 to make the change, and then it took another three weeks before Ruben Amorim officially took over.

Speaking to Sky Sports ahead of the Manchester Derby, Amorim revealed the limited time he had to work with his team. He shared that in 20 days, he had only three training sessions with the full squad, making it a significant challenge to implement his methods.

Amorim’s comments underscore why he had previously called for patience, highlighting the tough start he had with the team. Looking back, it’s evident that Ten Hag should have been replaced earlier in the season, particularly after the humiliating 3-0 defeat to Spurs in late September. This loss was widely seen as United’s worst performance of the century, and had Ten Hag been sacked then, Amorim would have had time to train and integrate his new ideas ahead of the busy December period.