He’s got a free hit the rest of this season, relatively speaking. Top four beyond them, they could get it together and threaten Europa. But basically he will come in and try to get them playing in the style he wants, which will necessarily bring some iffy results mixed in, but it won’t matter too much as their aspirations for this season are now so modest.
He won’t spend huge amounts but I expect them to help him shape the side with 3-4 signings between January and summer, and with the best of whatever he keeps, he will have a chance to make them a top four threat next season.
This is now Ineos. Their man. Their structure at all levels in the club. We will see what they are made of over the next 18 months. So far they have been crap.
I do think they have been in continued conversation with Amorim. The sticking point might well have been wages etc. And hence the decision to continue with ETH with the belief that he would be able to arrest the slide this season.
But then openly shopping around for managers had a destabilizing effect on what little confidence that ETH did have. And that led him to increasingly play the kind of football that the United squad isn’t suited for and neither did he have the tactical nous to make it work. The United squad is made for counterattacking football. It’s not made for a high defensive backline and high aggressive pressing.
