Inside Ruben Amorim's 14 months at Man Utd – Smashed TV, quit threats, Grimsby debacle

Inside Ruben Amorim's 14 months at Man Utd – Smashed TV, quit threats, Grimsby debacle

Ruben Amorim is all set to face former club Manchester United with AC Milan, seven months after his turbulent Old Trafford tenure came to an end

Ruben Amorim will be reunited with Manchester United on Saturday afternoon as his AC Milan side takes them on in a pre-season friendly. The Italian club appointed the Portuguese as their head coach in June, just five months after he was sacked by United following a disastrous spell in charge.

The 41-year-old was highly thought of before taking the United job due to his success with Sporting CP and arrived bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But thanks to his own actions and the wider chaos at the club, he endured a miserable time at Old Trafford.

His opposite number in the dugout for Saturday's friendly is Michael Carrick, whose relative success with United since January has only evoked more negative feelings towards Amorim's own dismal reign.

Ahead of what will surely be a strange reunion for the manager in Poland - and one he will be desperate to emerge victorious from- Mirror Football takes a look back at Amorim's turbulent reign as United boss and how his time with the club unravelled.

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Smashed TV

Having left his top-of-the-table Sporting side in November 2024 to join United mid-season, Amorim quickly realised the monumental scale of his task. A 3-1 home defeat to Brighton in January 2025 marked a seventh loss in his first 15 games in charge.

The impact of that on the initially charismatic manager was clear to see as he cut a miserable figure both on the touchline and during post-match interviews. After the loss, Amorim branded his United team the worst in the club's 147-year history - something he quickly admitted he shouldn't have said.

His brutal comments demonstrated his frustration with the lack of progress as United's players failed to adapt to his much-criticised 3-4-2-1 formation. That frustration also spilt out in the dressing room as he damaged a TV used for tactics at half-time in a display of fury.

Whilst he later took responsibility and admitted he would try to do better as a young head coach, the two incidents showed a degree of volatility. They raised questions about whether he had the necessary man-management skills to oversee the difficult project ahead of him, sowing the seeds of future struggles.

Europa League final heartbreak

As the season wore on, United's dreadful form made it increasingly clear that they would not qualify for Europe for the 2025/26 campaign via the Premier League. Winning the Europa League, of which they had reached the final, became of the utmost importance for securing Champions League qualification and getting the club back on the right trajectory.

However, Amorim's side showed very little quality in the Bilbao showpiece and were not helped by his selection decisions, including leaving Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo out of the starting line-up. Tottenham secured a 1-0 victory and ended a 17-year trophy drought.

The defeat, along with a 15th-place finish in the league, was a humiliating end to an already exhausting and miserable campaign. Amorim's rigid tactics, questionable man-management and overall negative demeanour led many in the media to demand his sacking. Amorim even said he was willing to walk away the very next day if that's what the board desired.

"In this moment, I am not going to be here defending myself, [it] is not my style," he said. "I cannot do it, is really hard for me. So I have nothing to show to the fans to say I am going to improve because of this, I had these problems, I will not do nothing.

"In this moment, it's a little bit of faith. So let's see. Like I said before, coming here before in the flash, I am always open. If the board and fans feel that I'm not the right guy, I will go the next day without any conversation about compensation. But I will not quit again. I am really confident in my job and, as you can see, I will not change nothing in the way I do things."

INEOS and the United board were desperate to break the club's decade-long cycle of sacking managers every 18-24 months. They stuck with him, believing he deserved a full pre-season and a summer transfer window to shape the squad to his own preference. Crucially, he also still seemed to have the support of the majority of his players.

Grimsby Town debacle

Following a summer where United notably backed him by signing three high-quality forwards in Benjamin Sesko, Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha, fans expected to see improvements. But after a defeat to Arsenal and a draw at Fulham came perhaps the lowest point in Amorim's United career.

In August 2025, United suffered a shock defeat to League Two side Grimsby Town in the Carabao Cup second round. As his side lost the penalty shootout, images of Amorim hunkering in the dugout rather than showing real leadership became ingrained in viewers' minds.

Memes of him fiddling with his tactics boards against the lower-league opposition also went viral on social media and cries of "you're getting sacked in the morning" from the home crowd marked the ultimate humiliation.

Having managed just 17 wins across 45 games. Amorim cut a defeated figure post-match, adding to a sense of foreboding. He said when asked if he understood what had happened at Blundell Park: "No. But I'm the manager. It should be my job to understand what happened." That only added to the general feeling that the United boss was already signalling he was ready to leave.

Quit threats and exit

A period of good form in October proved to be merely a brief respite and poor results quickly returned, with United again finding themselves on a winless run at the turn of the year. His self-deprecating comments, which had become more evident throughout his tenure, became an acceptance that his time at United was destined to be cut short.

He had said earlier in the season: "Sometimes I want to quit, sometimes I want to be here for 20 years, sometimes I love to be with my players, sometimes I don't want to be with them. So, again, I need to improve on that. It's going to be hard. But now I'm good with the next one."

In the new year, he began to more obviously call out United's hierarchy, seemingly egging them on to scrap his contract. Things came to a head after a 1-1 draw at Elland Road, in what would prove to be his final post-match outburst as the man in charge at Old Trafford.

"I came here to be the manager of Manchester United, not to be the coach of Manchester United. That is clear," Amorim said. "I know that my name is not [Thomas] Tuchel, it's not [Antonio] Conte, it's not [Jose] Mourinho, but I'm the manager of Manchester United. And it's going to be like this for 18 months or when the board decides to change.

"I'm not going to quit. I will do my job until another guy is coming here to replace me. I just want to say that I'm going to be the manager of this team, not just the coach. I was really clear on that. That is going to finish in 18 months, and then everyone is going to move on. Thank you, guys."

United's higher-ups ultimately decided enough was enough and dismissed him the following day, putting an end to his miserable tenure. Under-18s coach Darren Fletcher was brought in as caretaker boss with the club sitting in sixth place.

Carrick stepped in later that month and changed United's fortunes. It is very difficult to imagine the team ever securing Champions League qualification with Amorim at the helm. Now, things will go full circle as the Portuguese boss takes on the man who ultimately supplanted him.

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