Gary Neville’s suggestion that it will take ‘two to three transfer windows’ before Ruben Amorim can get Manchester United anywhere close to where they ought to be was striking.
And it was striking because while the initial reaction is to recoil at the idea of Manchester United writing off a season and a half, when you actually stop and think about what needs to be done, it won’t be anything like as quick as two to three transfer windows. Neville did say ‘minimum’ and, just as with added time, that word is the crucial one here.
There’s something about the phrase ‘two to three transfer windows’ that makes it sound like a far longer period of time than ’12 to 18 months’. And only when put in those terms do you realise there’s no chance United can put together an entirely Amorim-appropriate squad from scratch – and they really are pretty much starting from scratch – in that amount of time.
And that’s only taking into account the specific on-pitch requirements of Amorim’s unshakeable faith in 3-4-3. It is, as Neville acknowledged, a system that requires specific types of player in several positions. It is, as we can all currently see, a hugely unforgiving system on a squad that lacks the right component parts.
You need centre-backs who can play like full-backs. Full-backs who can play like wingers, or wingers who can play like full-backs. You need midfielders who can win the ball, carry the ball, pass the ball and do it all at non-stop high pace for 90 minutes without being pulled apart. And, as in most systems, it really helps if you have someone up top who reliably scores from a decent number of the chances the rest of the team creates.
United currently have none of those things. Especially the forward, but especially the midfielders.
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And they can’t even just try and spend their way out of this mess because as well as identifying and recruiting suitable sorts for Amorim’s various needs they must also tiptoe around PSR, selling before they can buy.
This is the bind United have been in pretty much since Sir Alex Ferguson left with the squad in such a mess that the only manager who could have got anything out of it was himself. United are really still recovering from that. They are always two to three transfer windows away.
You can go back to find Neville talking about United two years into the Jose Mourinho era ,still trying to put right the mistakes from Louis van Gaal’s reign of ennui.
“It hasn’t gone well, but you’ve got to remember Jose Mourinho has spent a lot of money, but the Louis van Gaal signings I have to say were really poor.
“So Jose Mourinho has had to get out of the club seven, eight, nine, 10 players, and then get them in.
“He’s only been here two years, he’s not been here 15 years.
“So for me there is still more investment to do to make up for the mistakes in those first three or four seasons.”
That was August 2018, after Mourinho had already had four transfer windows, never mind two or three. He was sacked four months later.
United have found themselves locked in a rinse-and-repeat cycle, this permanent state of always being 18 months away from where they need to be.
The paradox is that this ‘two to three transfer windows’ concept is so specifically unhelpful because it throws things forward just far enough to defer judgement or scrutiny at the current time but not far enough to realistically allow the changes to be made.
Because while at the moment it’s easy to focus on Amorim’s rigid insistence on ramming United’s square pegs into his system’s conspicuously round holes, the bigger and more difficult but ultimately potentially rewarding task he’s attempting to complete is a culture reset at a club that has lost its way.
And those cannot be measured in transfer windows and recent historical evidence suggests require far more than 18 months anyway.
It’s boring to keep saying ‘look at Liverpool under Klopp’ or ‘look at Arsenal under Arteta’ but it’s necessary. Klopp delivered an immediate uptick in results from a low base, but it took far longer than two or three windows for him to really get Liverpool where he wanted them.
And Arsenal had to trust vast acres of process with a team that barely appeared to have any kind of plan at all for three years before it all came good.
Even then there are no guarantees; we’re not saying Amorim currently deserves three years’ grace because neither Klopp’s Liverpool nor Arteta’s Arsenal were ever quite so bad you thought they might actually get relegated if the bottom four could just pull their finger out.
United are – and have been for more than a decade now – on the same circuitous path to nowhere as Spurs, just currently about a year behind, and we’ve been pretty clear that Spurs probably should accept the need to make yet another restart and hope this one might magically be the one that sticks.
United, though currently so bad that Spurs fans are laughing at them, aren’t yet in the kind of position where that sort of decision needs to be made. But they soon will be. And if they’ve kidded themselves on that Amorim should have this mess sorted in three transfer windows’ time then they are certain to be heading back to square one. It won’t be. It can’t be.
MORE ON MANCHESTER UNITED FROM F365:
👉 Who will be the next Man Utd manager if Ruben Amorim is sacked?
👉 Man Utd identify ‘ideal man to rebuild’ the club amid Ruben Amorim sack claims
👉 ‘Arrogant’ Amorim decision showed he was ‘done’ at Manchester United even before his first game
