Manchester United Still In A Cycle Of Poor Decision Making
Questionable leadership and tactical confusion as another managerial reset begins to unfold at Manchester United. Supporters are left wondering how the club has drifted this far from the standards once set on and off the pitch.
Perpetual confusion from boardroom to dugout
Manchester United have spent the season talking themselves into tactical fixes without ever confronting the structural rot behind them. For months the discourse centred on Amorim's refusal to abandon his back three, the decision not to start Mainoo and the insistence that a simple 4-2-3-1 would unlock the team. Now the shape has changed, the back four is in place, and the football looks even worse.
City and Arsenal are next and there is a real sense that both could tear through this side. The frustration among supporters is not simply about results, but about how many of these wounds feel self-inflicted.
Mismanagement at ownership level
INEOS and the Glazers have created an environment where no manager can operate with clarity. Ten Hag was left preparing for an FA Cup final while decision-makers quietly interviewed replacements. Amorim arrived on the back of assurances about autonomy and squad building, only for interference and mixed signals to return within months.
The irony is that performances had actually improved on last season's finish in 15th place. Instead of stability, the club chose another reset.
A squad stretched thin
The recent slump also coincided with key absences. Amad, Maz, Mbeumo, Maguire, De Ligt, Bruno and Mount have all missed time, leaving youngsters to prop up the bench. The club were three points off the Champions League spots before Amorim was dismissed. Now the plan appears to be Carrick or Ole with no January reinforcements because the board want compliance rather than conviction.
United chased Dan Ashworth for nearly a year, paid compensation to bring him in, and then paid him off. They hired Amorim knowing full well he plays a back three, bought him a single player and then questioned his methods once the scrutiny arrived. Even pundits like Neville spent weeks dissecting the system as though the club had not knowingly hired a manager because of that exact philosophy.
Resetting the reset
Once Amorim was gone, the club reverted to the shape that pundits demanded, the same ideas that supporters were convinced would solve everything, and the performance level sank further. Perhaps the problem was never the formation. Perhaps it was the neglected midfield, the lack of technical security, and the fact that Dalot and Shaw are still nailed-on starters in a team supposedly chasing Europe.
United are nowhere near the sides above them. The squad is not elite, the recruitment has been scattershot and the organisation is clinging to a mythology that died years ago. Any realistic chance of European qualification has been damaged by Wilcox, Berrada and a pundit ecosystem that treated Amorim as a problem before he even unpacked his ideas.
The decline of an institution
It is not unreasonable to expect United to finish 14th or 15th if the slide continues. They could not raise their level against Brighton's reserves and the standards that once defined the club are nowhere to be seen. The traditions forged under Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson have been buried under years of chaos and half-baked rebuilds. The club that once terrified Europe now struggles to recognise itself at all.
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