Ruben Amorim brutal next Man United manager truth explained as Ineos reality glaringly clear

Manchester United have identified their man, and who can blame them? The head coach is trendy, seemingly tactically astute, proven in European competition, good with young players, has a defined style of play, and five trophies at senior level on his CV.

The domestic league win percentage from their previous job stands at an impressive 78.3. In full seasons completed (of which there are three), this manager had an average points tally of 85 from 34 league games. Yes, this is Erik ten Hag at Ajax you're looking at.

Now compare that to Ruben Amorim at Sporting CP. The stuff about style, tactics, and Europe are all true. His side have and are continuing to use and develop young players into bigger stars, whilst he ended a 19-year title drought and then won it again last season as well.

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So yes, Amorim is good. Everything about him looks good, from the gelled hair and nice beard to perhaps more importantly his actual footballing success. Two domestic titles since 2019 as well as two domestic cups in Portugal.

At Sporting he has a win percentage of 76.9, which rises slightly to 78.6 in full seasons, and therefore above Ten Hag at Ajax. Can you start to see the problem here?

This is not so much meant as a criticism of Amorim, who has done everything in his short managerial career to get himself in line for a job like United, but it is a warning. Ten Hag was also meant to be the guy who had buckets of aura and other buzzwords. Most top managers can look good on paper, talk a good game, and seem destined to sort it all out quickly. No, no, this one is the one because I said so.

There is no simple route to doing this all well. History cannot be rewritten to make Ten Hag look like a bad manager when United appointed him. His track record spoke for itself, he was the next cab off the rank, and it made a lot of sense when United went for him.

A third-place finish and a trophy in his first season was a reward for the work to get him appointed relatively early. Within 18 months, and just half a season after his strong maiden voyage in England, it was already a struggle to see how he would complete the 2023/24 campaign.

Ineos and Sir Jim Ratcliffe allowed him to do that when most owners wouldn't. They then gave him a new contract, totally scrambled by the failed replacement search. None of this changes who Ten Hag was at the start or how ideal he initially looked to be for United.

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Amorim, by design, is in a similar position. He hasn't quite had the statement impact on the wider footballing landscape that Ten Hag had with his Ajax superteam (will we be questioning in a few years time if actually, Viktor Gyokeres made Amorim look good, like was thrown at Ten Hag with Frenkie de Jong and others?), but he has done everything else.

Let it not be forgotten, in the honour of balance, that Amorim is 39. He started his managerial career right off the back of being a player. He is younger than Thiago Silva, a strange minor Fabian Hurzeler-ism that would have been seen at Chelsea if they had appointed him on either of two attempts in the past two years.

Ten Hag had more experience as both a coach and a coach at the top level. His history with Bayern Munich is more elite access than Amorim has had. Does that set you up for life in the game? Evidently not. Amorim is still learning. He's being mightily good whilst doing so, though.

His lure is strong. A solid base to build from with a three-man backline - something it appears he is absolutely wedded to, and not in the modern way of inverting full-backs, just an out-and-out wingback system - with slow, patient play to move forward. Amorim's 227 Sporting matches (and counting) have been defined by both a strong attack and resilient defence.

His points per game tally stands at 2.27, with goals per game (2.19) and goal conceded per game (0.86) a demonstration of how titanic his team have become. Nine straight league wins with 30 scored and just two conceded in the league this season are a reflection of total-form-Sporting. They are fully operational, built in his image and with his fingerprints all over.

He also has victories over Arsenal and Tottenham in Europe - always a good sign and a habit to get into if you are to become the figurehead for Manchester United. It is, at this stage, worth going back to Ten Hag briefly.

His Ajax numbers are just as sharp. Retrospect makes it look easy because Lisandro Martinez, Andre Onana, De Jong, and the rest are obviously established players, but they needed moulding and fine-tuning, something Ten Hag has played a key role in. Amorim has done the same at Sporting.

Success can look simple and straightforward before it is remembered that Benfica and Porto had a stranglehold on Portugal in the pre-Amorim days. Ajax were much more dominant when Ten Hag rose through, yet his results chime closely with those of Amorim so far.

215 matches, 159 wins with 2.34 points per game, 593 scored at an astonishing 2.75 per game and 184 let in at a rate of 0.85 in any given match. It is hard to read loads into this from either manager simply because of the level of some of the opposition.

There are weak teams that don't really offer much of a game for squads boasting the quality Ten Hag and Amorim have. You must beat what is in front of you, though, and they both did it to an extent that makes them unavoidable and unignorable.

The overriding feeling is once more that risk is being taken. After all, if Ten Hag was the no-brainer who deserved a chance in 2022, then Amorim is in a similar position, albeit younger and without that statement pathway like the 2019 Champions League was for Ten Hag.

It is at this stage that each prospective manager is written off or bigged up. The simple matter is that, really, we don't know how they will succeed. The United squad does not look suited to playing a regular 3-4-3, but a really good coach doesn't have problems in adapting or making his group work with what is in front of them.

For Amorim to succeed, he will need time to change things. Not only the culture which is perennially questioned at Old Trafford, but also to drill a set of players who are once more under fire for underperforming and downing tools. He won't be able to solve all of this himself.

Ineos and Ratcliffe turning to Amorim itself means they believe he can work in a hierarchy as they demand. That will be something new as well, but is no guarantee to work immediately. United saw with Ten Hag how things can look good and tail off, there is nothing that can be totally guarded against in football.

How will a 39-year-old lacking English football experience manage in the cauldron? Does he have the character and methods to make it all work? On paper, it seems so, but when at United the paper is often ripped up, torn to pieces, and usually burned anyway.

We have seen highly-rated coaches come in and be swallowed by the United churn, dumped in at the deep end with little regard for anything else. Amorim looks ready to take on the challenge and is a fighter, but nobody can truly know how he may fare.

What this is to say is that excitement over Amorim is understandable, as is the celebration of United finally making an actual decision to split from Ten Hag - five months too late for many. But the same was very much true when Ten Hag himself took up the post. Things are good until they go badly, they work until they don't, and football is incredibly fickle, it doesn't discriminate or have much time for hotshots, no matter how bright.

This is Ineos' first appointment in sporting control and it's a big one. Having never truly gotten behind Ten Hag, it is telling that there are immediate similarities between Amorim and the man he is set to succeed. The hope is that the differences between the pair - and there are significant ones - are big enough so that things work out for Amorim where they didn't for Ten Hag.

Amorim can be the best option on the market and still have a mountain in front of him. He can be both a risk and one worth taking. The shadow of Ten Hag provides a cautionary tale, though, and that shouldn't be forgotten either, to ignore it would be disingenuous and irresponsible.