The staggering cost of Amorim’s “doomed tenure” is laid bare, Ratcliffe is even worse than the Glazers – report

14 months. 64 games. 24 wins, 18 draws and 21 losses. It would be dismal reading for a manager of bottom half team; it’s a record which is scarcely believable for the head coach of Manchester United, the country’s biggest club. Ruben Amorim’s win record – 31.9% – is the worst of any coach in the Premier League era with INEOS finally bringing an end to his tenure on a cold Monday morning. Ruben Amorim Managerial Stats TeamFromToGames PlayedGames WonGames DrawnGames LostWin % Casa Pia1 July 20187 January 2019430175.00 Braga B16 September 201923 December 20191182172.73 Braga23 December 20194 March 202013101276.92 Sporting CP4 March 202010 November 2024231164343371.00 Manchester United11 November 20245 January 20266324182138.10 Career total——322209555864.91 A Messy Divorce The explosive fallout is still spilling out of the club today, with a wealth of reports revealing fractious in-fighting, fiery disputes, conflicting messages and broken promises. Tensions had been bubbling beneath the surface over the past month – but the veil was angrily ripped back by Amorim in his press conference at Elland Road after the 1-1 draw with Leeds United. The Portuguese coach demanded other sections of the club – the scouting department and sporting director – “do their jobs” so that he could do his. Constant reference to him being the “manager”, bristling at the term ‘coach’, suggested acute discontent with his level of influence over the football operation at Old Trafford. INEOS had already decided to wield the axe prior to this bombastic interview, however, with the draw against Wolves the tipping point, rather than Leeds. This decision – and who ultimately provoked it – will be largely subject to individual interpretation, with INEOS possessing their version of the divorce and Amorim his. But the record on the pitch is impervious to debate – as are the staggering costs United have invested to both hire and fire the 40-year-old coach, at a time when the non-playing staff at the club have been brutalised by redundancies. Costly Mistake after Costly Mistake INEOS were adamant they wanted Amorim to immediately replace Erik ten Hag in November 2024, rather than waiting until the end of the season as the then-Sporting CP manager preferred. According to talkSPORT, United paid the Portuguese champions an initial £9.5 million to prise their Treinador from Lisbon, signing a contract worth £6.7m-a-year. It was also iron-clad, entitling Amorim to full renumeration should he be sacked. Across his 14 months in Manchester, Amorim has earned £7.8m as the Red Devils’ head coach. The dismissal has paid him a further £10.05m on top of this, bringing the total cost of his tenure to £27.35m for just 14 months of work – or just under £1m a win. However, a large part of what led to Dan Ashworth’s dismissal was dispute in vision for who should take over from Ten Hag in the first place, with the football director advocating for an adaptable candidate with Premier League experience – the opposite of what chief executive Omar Berrada convinced the club to pursue in Amorim. The cost of hiring and firing Ashworth – poached at considerable cost and effort from Newcastle United – was £4.1m, for just over five months of work. This leaves the grand sum of £31.45m paid by the club, at INEOS’s request, to secure their first-choice targets in the boardroom and the dugout, only to then unceremoniously sack both. And this profligacy has taken place against a backdrop of mass redundancies at the Theatre of Dreams for the club’s non-playing staff, with upwards of 400 jobs having been lost since INEOS took control in 2024. It’s little wonder why Ratcliffe – a billionaire who resides in Monaco for tax purposes, after actively advocating for Brexit – has been widely criticised by many with close ties to United, with the word “disgust” commonly used at the cost-cutting measures. Featured image Carl Recine via Getty Images The Peoples Person has been one of the world’s leading Man United news sites for over a decade. Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social Darragh Darragh is an editor for The Peoples Person who spent three years learning about the Cold War at the University of Sheffield slowly realising football was by far the most interesting thing to write about. Amad’s first touch should be officially recognised as the eighth wonder of the world.