As the dust settles on the sudden departure of Ruben Amorim the vessel named HMS Manchester United is back in familiar waters.
Any strong and seaworthy vessel needs a captain, a leader, and a capable hand on the tiller to steady the literal ship and guide his crew through the darkest of nights and stormiest of seas. Without a man in charge, the vessel is rendered useless - listing leeward at the mercy of the conditions - rudderless, punctured, holed below the waterline.
And that's where United find themselves at right now. A craft that has been left to the mercy of the sea with unstable parts that don't fit together, components which aren't fit for purpose with an inadequate, badly assembled structure that's creaking at the seams. There is a man at the head of all this, in Sir Jim Ratcliffe, but he has an INEOS crew hopelessly out of their depth and one whom have never done lifeboat drill. No one knows who's meant to be in charge, no one has a clue who should be doing what or who should be where. To continue the analogy, changing the manager is like shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Whatever your thoughts on Amorim, you have to feel a shred of sympathy for him. This cannot have been the plan. In October Ratcliffe spoke, and spoke well, on giving their man three years to prove himself because previous managers "haven't had long enough." His words. At the time, it was refreshing to hear an owner speak so openly and candidly on the future. At least he was giving us a timeframe, a vision, something to suggest INEOS would go against the grain and give a manager time.
Yet here we are, three months on. 14 months into that self-confessed three year project, and Amorim has gone. Pushed out the door for daring to question Ratcliffe and his merry band of minions on the board.
It is a third black mark against INEOS in just over two years. They promised the earth but have delivered nothing except a few savings on Sellotape. Put bluntly, Ratcliffe and his cohorts have got nothing right since taking on the giant, unwieldy beast of Manchester United back on Christmas Eve 2024.
United are no less dysfunctional now than we were on the day Ratcliffe and his millions walked in, portrayed as the mega-rich knight in shining armour destined to clear the clouds of ill-feeling under the poison of the Glazer regime.
But the reality has been somewhat different. Ratcliffe is a rich businessman, and rich businessmen are ruthless. They do not take kindly to having their nose put out of joint. The decision to sack Amorim cannot be purely based on results - if that were the case, then surely he would have gone after Bilbao. Or Grimsby. Or Everton. We're 6th and within touching distance of Champions League football - we are on track to achieve our aim. No, Amorim was sacked for what he said after Leeds. For daring to challenge his paymasters. He wanted more control and was prepared to go nuclear to get it.
You can view this situation both ways. As the manager, or 'head coach', you should be able to get on with your job, to coach and set your team up however you see fit without any outside influence. You can see why Amorim felt having those methods questioned might be outside the remit of a board member. Yet on the other hand, the manager of a club is only one piece of a chess board. He has others above him who he's answerable to. As in this case, those 'others' are often powerful, influential moneymakers with little patience who want to see their investments rewarded.
They have stumbled from one bad decision, one misstep, to the next with the Amorim debacle the very latest public demonstration of their failures.
This of course came hot on the heels of the shambles surrounding the sacking of the Portuguese's predecessor in Erik ten Hag. The Dutchman was given a contract extension and 200m to spend in the wake of winning the FA Cup only for the folly of that gamble to be exposed when he was out on his ear only two months later.
Dan Ashworth questioned their call of going for Amorim and he, too, was sacked. They don't want anyone challenging them - they want a yes man, a nodding dog, who will sit quietly in the corner and do everything they say.
For a regime earning a reputation for cost-cutting, the cost of sacking ten Hag then appointing and sacking Amorim just over a year later have been two (very expensive) mistakes costing almost 20m.
Then there was forcing Amorim to take the job mid-season when he didn't want to, preferring to wait until the summer, then the impression of surprise that he was sticking to the principles he's made a career of. Going over his head to sign Senne Lammens and Benjamin Sesko when he wanted Emi Martinez and Ollie Watkins.
Ratcliffe, Omar Berrada, Jason Wilcox and Christopher Vivell clearly never did their homework. If they had, they would have known Amorim's fixation on the 3-4-3 had put Liverpool off going for him. They would have known United's squad was completely unsuitable for the manager to play how he wanted.
It's true Amorim certainly did not help himself. He stubbornly and religiously stuck to a formation totally alien to the squad at his disposal. His substitutions were baffling and in game management questionable. He was honest with the media - perhaps a bit too much so at times - and, whilst he came across as a nice bloke you'd want a beer with, he was naive and didn't seem to understand the unique rigours of the Premier League.
Ratcliffe, Berrada and Wilcox now find themselves back at square one. Darren Fletcher will take charge in the interim to hold the fort and let things calm down. It is the latest huge decision facing United's powerbrokers and one they simply have to get right.
INEOS are completely rudderless and have left the sinking ship of Manchester United exposed to the elements.
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