Premier League: Amorim may sacrifice old rivalry for Europa League importance
Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim contemplated his decision in the dugout during the UEFA Europa League Round of 16, first leg match against Real Sociedad at the Reale Arena in San Sebastian, Spain. Picture: Bradley Collyer/PA Wire
Tomorrow’s ‘Super Sunday’ game sees Manchester United host Arsenal at Old Trafford in a match that has significance for both sides, but not for the reasons that defined this fixture down the years.
The meeting of these two sides usually promised a tempestuous affair between clubs contesting top spot in the league or a Champions League qualification at the very least. The Roy Keane: “I’ll see you out there” remark to Patrick Vieira in the famous heated tunnel encounter in Highbury way back in 2005, will always spring to mind to define what this fixture used to mean for these clubs. But one wonders can the current incumbents of those famous jerseys generate the same fire in the stomach these days.
Arsenal may or may not be still in the title race, depending on today’s result between Liverpool and Southampton. But will still be eager to revitalise a campaign that has seen them struggle to score goals at least domestically. Which to anyone watching them play for the first time in Tuesday night’s Champions League encounter against PSV might find incomprehensible. Away to the Dutch side in the first leg of the knockout stages, the Gunners were certainly not firing blanks, running out 7-1 winners. It was almost like a stream of goals for Arsenal, backed up over the past month in the Premier League, suddenly broke through the dam flooding the unfortunate Eindhovenaars. Which, to be sure, is a rather unfortunate analogy to drop on any Dutch community.
As the goals rained in at the Phillips Stadium, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta must have wondered why his side couldn’t have spared a couple of scores for those frustrating blanks in recent Premier League games. But that’s football, I guess.
He will hope his side will now be infected by the scoring bug and return with a few scores in the title run-in, starting with Sunday’s game against United.
Man United, on the other hand have had a truly terrible season and this week had two results in the FA Cup and the Europa League that would seem be incomprehensible to the old guard like Roy Keane back in day.
Last season’s FA Cup win for Erik ten Hag was enough to delay the guillotine on his management until earlier this season, but the blade still eventually dropped in November. And that occurred despite posting far superior results than his replacement Ruben Amorim.
Amorim has witnessed his side struggle to get beyond 14th in the table, slip out of the Carabao Cup, and exit the FA Cup last weekend, in an Old Trafford penalty shootout to Fulham. The Portuguese man is now left with the uphill battle to secure his own future on the tenuous hope of building on the 1-1 scoreline achieved away to Real Sociedad, when the Spaniards return to Old Trafford for the return leg next Thursday.
Making his situation more delicate, is the fact that the finances at club are getting far more restricted. After years of expansive and expensive tours of the transfer markets in an effort to buy their way out of their downward spiral, with limited success, the purse-string look to be tightening. It’s not the only issues at the ‘Theatre of Dreams’. There are worrying signs of structural dilapidation and even rat infestation all over Old Trafford, and the mood in general appears miserable around the club, in the light of the club making sweeping staff redundancies and even cutbacks in non-playing staff lunches. In a cost-cutting strategy that seems to be led by Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos group, after they took a major stake in the club in December.
It’s a stark reality facing Amorim, with pressure on and off the pitch. But his position is secure as far as it looks a pointless exercise to fire another manager so quickly, when there are few options for an effective replacement. In that light though, a win or at least a fighting result tomorrow against a title-contending side, would bank a lot of goodwill with the fans and owners, even if it would have little effect on their season.
Against that, United and probably Amorim’s only priority has to be the Europa League as it is the only path to silverware, and more importantly qualification to the Champions League (if they win it), left to them now. It may be tempting to rest a few key players with Thursday’s return leg in mind. But that means turning their back on the old Ferguson-Wenger rivalry that once lit up and defined the Premier League in its early days. Few in the stands would appreciate such a supine reaction from United no matter what the club’s situation. Another dilemma for Amorim to wrestle with this weekend.
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