Sometimes, and if we’re honest it happens suspiciously often during international breaks, we remember something we wrote ages ago and wonder if the theory still holds, whether it needs reappraisal.
Often, it’s just excruciating. Often, it’s things like ‘five reasons why Manchester City won’t win the title’ that we’ve written nanoseconds before they do their annual 15-game winning run between January and March. Sometimes we’ll realise we’ve said positive things about Erik Ten Hag, or wondered aloud just what on earth Chelsea are up to with this crack-pot Cole Palmer idea.
Very occasionally, though, we discover to our utter surprise that our stopped clock was indeed telling the right time.
A year ago we wrote about Unai Emery as the antidote to the Main Character Energy that appeared to have become mandatory for your top, top managers. Now we’re not claiming to have spotted anything nobody else had about Villa and Emery; they’d just beaten City to go third in the table, and were just about to do the same to Arsenal towards the end of that absurd run of home wins they had last year.
But it occurs to us now that there are a few more Emerys knocking around the top of the Premier League table now, and slightly fewer Main Character Managers.
There are various ways that main character energy can manifest. As we put it last year:
The effervescent oomph of a Jurgen Klopp, the molten brain of a Pep Guardiola, the endlessly cutting deadpan humour of a miserable clown like Jose Mourinho, Ange Postecoglou saying ‘mate’ a lot.
Even Mikel Arteta has a vague sort of steely-eyed charisma, behind the weird rants and staring, accusatory eyes.
Interesting to look at those guys a year on. Klopp is now guzzling Red Bull in Germany having left the daily grind behind, Mourinho is seemingly more miserable than ever in Turkey, Guardiola and Arteta are having their toughest moments in years, and Ange Postecoglou still says ‘mate’ a lot but everyone has worked out his football mainly doesn’t work.
And who are the managers enjoying Barclays life right now? Arne Slot. Enzo Maresca. Nuno Espirito Santo. These, we would suggest, are far more Emery types than Klopps or Guardiolas, and we’re talking in terms of charismatic presence rather than ability.
Look at how well Liverpool and Chelsea have done this season. And then think about how often you’ve seen or heard from Slot or Maresca. Then imagine those teams doing precisely as well, but with Klopp and Mourinho at the helm and how much more visible those managers would have been. How much more you’d have heard them speak.
Even Fabian Hurzeler at Brighton, with his vaguely unsettling tech-bro stylings, has kept a lower profile in the Seagulls’ fine start to the season than would have been the case under either Graham Potter or especially Roberto De Zerbi.
This is not a criticism of any of these people; it’s just interesting to note that there does seem to have been a shift away from that kind of domineering cult-leader manager in the Premier League just at the time their dominance was approaching the absolute.
If you asked any non-Liverpool football fan for an opinion on Klopp, they would have one. Instantly and forcefully. They would be many and varied. Some would believe him a fraud. Some would admit they grudgingly loved the guy. Some would wish he could be a more gracious loser, or stop banging on about fixture congestion. Some would mention the teeth. Some might even feel so strongly about him that they torch their entire career over it, if you can imagine such a thing.
Ask them what they think about Arne Slot and see what happens. Sure, he’s been here far less time, but we’d confidently state neutrals already have a stronger opinion on Ruben Amorim than they do Slot, and Amorim hasn’t even taken charge of a single game yet.
Which makes Amorim’s arrival even more interesting, doesn’t it? We’re on the record as huge fans of the Portuguese, and one of the reasons is that United more than any of the other big clubs are probably the one most in need of a Main Character Manager to drag them forward, kicking and screaming if need be.
Erik Ten Hag was never quite it. He was neither Emery nor Klopp, Slot nor Guardiola. He was so visible, so obviously front and centre at United, yet without the requisite charisma to carry it off. And where does that lead? Mortifying home defeats to Liverpool and Spurs, and hailing 0-0 draws at Crystal Palace as tangible signs of progress.
Amorim has charisma to burn. And only a true Main Character Manager could possibly accept the Manchester United job and then just ask everyone to just wait a minute while he casually goes out and gives Manchester City a 4-1 shoeing. The press boys have already secured him a very important early win over boring old Slot.
There’s all manner of swooning ‘Mourinho 2.0’ chat around Amorim. On the one hand it doesn’t really make much sense. Beyond nationality – which, to be fair, we must acknowledge is always of heightened importance for the definitely sane UK tabloid media – there really isn’t much similarity between the two men as managers. But what they both do undeniably possess is that charisma, that presence.
You don’t always know whether he’s going to be the protagonist or antagonist, but you always know Mourinho is going to make sure he’s the focus of any game he’s involved in. Sometimes for better, very often for worse.
Amorim doesn’t appear to have quite the same malignant ego as Mourinho, but he does have the presence. We’re about to see the first new real Main Character enter a Premier League dugout since Postecoglou at the start of last season. We all remember how much everyone loved him for a bit, don’t we? With Amorim and Manchester United it’s going to be that, with knobs on.
And from a wider league perspective there really does seem to be an opening for him. Guardiola is Guardiola, and it seems he’s going to be around for a while yet, but Arteta’s schtick has started wearing as thin as Postecoglou’s.
With the other big clubs all now in the hands of less overtly attention-grabbing managers, Amorim is going to get some pretty relentless coverage. For better or worse.
