On Monday morning, Manchester United announced the surprise news that Rúben Amorim had been sacked. In a statement, the club stated that they "reluctantly made the decision that it is the right time to make a change".
The 40-year-old departs after 14 months and 63 matches in charge, winning only 24 of them, suffering 21 defeats. In pure Premier League terms, his statistics do not make for good reading.
Post-Sir Alex Ferguson Manchester United manager's points-per-game
Manager | PL matches | PL points per game |
|---|---|---|
José Mourinho | 93 | 1.89 |
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 109 | 1.81 |
Louis van Gaal | 76 | 1.79 |
Erik ten Hag | 85 | 1.72 |
David Moyes | 34 | 1.68 |
Ralf Rangnick | 24 | 1.54 |
Rúben Amorim | 47 | 1.23 |
As the table documents, Amorim's Premier League record is not very impressive at all, winning just 15 of 47 matches in charge, losing 19. This includes leading Manchester United to 15th place last season, their lowest finish since being relegated in 1974.
Sunday's 1-1 draw at Leeds means they've won only three of 11 league matches since the start of November, so perhaps the announcement shouldn't have been that much of a shock after all.
Darren Fletcher is set to be in charge of Wednesday's trip to Burnley, as well as Sunday's FA Cup tie against Brighton at Old Trafford. Reports suggest the club hierarchy is looking to appoint a difference interim for the remainder of the season, before hiring a full-time manager in the summer. If this is the plan, there can only be one obvious front-runner for the role.
Manchester United's ideal Rúben Amorim replacement
As always, plenty of managers are being linked with the Old Trafford vacancy. The recently unemployed Enzo Maresca as well as Gareth Southgate, Mauricio Pochettino, Kieran McKenna and Xavi are among those purportedly in the running, but Oliver Glasner is surely the obvious choice.
Under Amorim, Manchester United have spent over a year on the training ground and in the transfer market working towards perfecting a back three. Glasner has seemingly done just that in South London, so he could come in and supercharge everything Amorim was working towards.
The Austrian has led Crystal Palace to the FA Cup, the club's first-ever major trophy, as well as the Community Shield, a 19-match unbeaten run and into Europe for the very first time. Glasner will go down as, almost indisputably, Palace's best manager, albeit he is unlikely to still be there much longer.
The 51-year-old's contract expires in the summer and, frustrated by the club's inactivity in the transfer market, leaving him with a very thin squad, he seems very unlikely to sign an extension.
Even before arriving at Selhurst, Glasner had achieved plenty. He led Wolfsburg to a top-four finish in the Bundesliga, only to jump ship for Eintracht Frankfurt, winning the Europa League in charge of die Adler.
Before appointing Vincent Kompany, Bayern Munich made Glasner one of their primary managerial targets, only for Palace to reject any approaches, underlining how highly he is rated.
So, having won trophies at two underdog clubs, as well as excelling within the Premier League, he seemingly ticks every box Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Jason Wilcox, Omar Berrada and others could be looking for. As already alluded to, Amorim recruited players to fit into his back-three system.
Thus, if Glasner came in and was simply able to implement the formation more effectively, this could get the best out of Lisandro Martínez, Patrick Dorgu, Amad, Bryan Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha and others. Thus, if Man United are willing to wait until the summer, seeing out the second half of the campaign with a caretaker, they should do all they can to tie down Glasner.