Ruben Amorim was sacked as Manchester United manager on Monday after 14 months in charge – with Gary Neville identifying the ‘killer game’ that sealed his fate.
Gary Neville has delivered his verdict on Ruben Amorim’s departure from Manchester United, pinpointing which fixture proved to be the ‘killer game’ for the club’s now-former manager. United confirmed on Monday that they had parted ways with Amorim following 14 months at the helm.
Amorim’s last match in charge of United was Sunday afternoon’s 1-1 draw with Leeds United at Elland Road. That outcome left United sitting sixth place in the Premier League standings, trailing fourth-placed Liverpool by three points near to the midway point.
Recently, Amorim was questioned about the backing he had from United’s hierarchy, prompting the 40-year-old Portuguese to offer a lengthy response regarding his position at Old Trafford.
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“Guys, to stop with that, and I noticed that you received selective information about everything,” Amorim said, after United’s draw with Leeds on Sunday. “I came here to be the manager of Manchester United, not to be the coach of Manchester United. That is clear.
“I know that my name is not [Thomas] Tuchel, is not [Antonio] Conte, is not [Jose] Mourinho, but I’m the manager of Manchester United. It’s going to be like this for 18 months or when the board decided to change. That was my point. I want to finish with that. I’m not going to quit. I will do my job until other guy is coming here to replace me.
“I just want to say that I’m going to be the manager of this team, not just the coach. I was really clear on that. That is going to finish in 18 months, and then everyone is going to move on.
“That was the deal. That is my job, not to be a coach. If people can’t handle the Gary Nevilles and the criticism of everything, then we need to change the club. No, no guys, I would say that I came here to be the manager of Manchester United, not to be the coach. Every department, the scouting department, the sport director needs to do their job. I will do mine for 18 months and then we move on. Thank you, guys.”
Within 24 hours, United had parted company with Amorim, and Neville has shared his thoughts on both that decision and its timing. The United icon, speaking on Sky Sports News, also revealed why he considers the 1-1 stalemate with Wolves on December 30 to have been a pivotal moment.
“Look, if there was a meeting on Friday morning about the performance against Wolves between the sporting director and the manager – I would actually have been disappointed if there wasn’t a meeting after the Wolves performance,” Neville said.
“I think as a sporting director or owner of a football club, you should be entitled to go and speak to a manager when the team have played like they have against Wolves and, basically, Wolves have picked up a point at Old Trafford, only their third of the season.
“It seems to me that in the last week, Ruben Amorim has decided that he doesn’t feel supported or he doesn’t feel happy, he’s called it out obviously in press conferences, decided to unleash at times and sort of be emotional and do what he does; I think he’s always been honest, he’s always done it with integrity, he’s always speaking from the heart – we always enjoy his press conferences.
“But the reality of it is, when you turn on your bosses – it doesn’t matter whether you’re at a football club or you work in Morrisons – if you turn on your bosses, you’re not going to keep your job very long.”
Neville added: “Over the last five or six weeks, I’ve done probably every United game other than the Leeds and Crystal Palace games, and I’ve actually complimented United when I think they’ve performed well; against Bournemouth, when they drew 4-4, against Villa when they lost was a disappointing result, but I’d thought there was something in the performance.
“But some of the performances in the last month… if you look at the Everton game, losing to 10 men when to be fair Ruben Amorim kept three at the back against one and they were trying to chase a goal against 10-man Everton.
“The performance against West Ham – everyone is beating West Ham and Manchester United drew at home and to be fair West Ham could’ve got more out of the game. Everyone is beating Wolves, Manchester United drew against Wolves.
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“So if you look at some of the performances in the last month, they’ve been shocking. However, there have been some bright spots along the way.
“I actually thought against Leeds, that was a decent performance, I thought it was a good point and he could have handled it differently after the game in the press conference but he didn’t. The Wolves game to me seemed like the killer game, it was a bad one.”
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