Ruben Amorim has done it his way at Manchester United – but at what cost?

They have a song at Ruben Amorim’s old club.

Entitled “A Marcha do Sporting”, it is Sporting CP’s official anthem, and it is sung to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s My Way. 

It is hard to shake the suspicion that it has rubbed off rather too literally on the Manchester United manager.

Should Amorim leave the club in the near future – and despite assurances from within United to the contrary, the Portuguese finds himself under greater scrutiny than ever after Sunday’s 3-0 derby defeat to Manchester City – the Sinatra classic would undoubtedly make for a fitting epitaph.

Nobody could deny that Amorim has done things his way at Old Trafford. Indeed, it has been his rallying cry, a defiant message that the 40-year-old will stick to his guns – in this case, his beloved 3-4-3 or 3-4-2-1 system – come hell or high water. 

Never mind if, despite a summer outlay of more than £200m, he lacks the personnel to make it work. Never mind last season’s 15th-place finish. Never mind that the club has endured its worst start to a league season in 33 years, or that the players seem to be losing faith in his methods. Amorim, whose 36.17% win rate is the worst of any United manager since the second world war, insists he is not for changing.

‘I play my way and will play my way until I want to change’

“I won’t change my philosophy,” said Amorim after watching Erling Haaland add a brace to Phil Foden’s first-half opener for City. “If [United] want it changed, you change the man. I am not going to change my philosophy. We talk about this [after] every game that we lose. I play my way and will play my way until I want to change.”

Leaving aside the point that Amorim was, at this stage, quite literally quoting Sinatra, longstanding concerns about his approach are only growing. Concerns that Amorim’s way is not the right way. That too many square pegs are still being squeezed into too many round holes. That a United manager should be more adaptable. That the club captain Bruno Fernandes is being deployed too deep, while the England midfielder Kobbie Mainoo is not being deployed at all.  Amorim is even being mocked by bookmakers. Where will it all end? 

“I think there will be some pressure applied to the manager and his rigidity of sticking with the system,” former United full-back Gary Neville told Sky Sports. “With Chelsea next week, another defeat and big questions would start to be asked.

‘United are struggling to find rhythm, tempo, performance levels’

“There’s got to be a turnaround pretty quickly, and the manager’s idea has got to land very quickly with the players. 

“They’re struggling to find rhythm, to find tempo, to find performance levels. I’m worried about the manager, I’m worried about what’s going to happen in the next few weeks. I don’t think it’s a time for panic, but I’ve seen this before, we’ve seen this film.”

Neville’s concerns were echoed by former club captain Roy Keane, who likewise expressed concerns about Amorim’s slavish devotion to his tactical blueprint and the team’s lack of progress.

“You talk about the system, but the manager has come in and is sticking to his guns,” said Keane. “He’s not budging. The results – and we look at points per game, goals for, goals against – it does concern me. It’s not good reading. 

‘How long do you keep waiting?’

“We keep making excuses, but when are we going to see the signs? People say: give managers time. Of course. But we saw [Arne] Slot go into Liverpool – and Liverpool were a better team than United last season – but he ended up winning the league. 

“Other managers, you see [Thomas] Frank, going into Spurs, and you see signs of them getting better. How long do you keep waiting when you keep getting a point a game?”

That question is now being asked with ever greater urgency. Amorim may not be facing the final curtain just yet but, with Chelsea and Sunderland due at Old Trafford either side of a trip to Brentford, an upturn in results cannot come soon enough.