What a relief for Manchester United supporters to feel emboldened on the way to Old Trafford for once.
- Originally published before United confirmed their place in the Europa League final
Not even this team could mess up a 3-0 first-leg lead, although this unfamiliar sensation – confidence, we call that - will quickly disappear if they let their focus drift any further into the future. Amorim already has, and he didn’t like what he saw.
“We are not ready to play in the Premier League, be competitive, and to be in the Champions League," Amorim told Sky Sports.
“We know that, but we need to win… Then we will have time to prepare the team to cope with those two competitions. So, it is a dilemma, but we want to win, of course.”
Playing in the Champions League: a dilemma. Welcome to the modern Man Utd. Welcome to Amorim’s painfully aggressive truth bombs.
In the words of Peep Show’s Jeremy Usborne: do you have to live quite so relentlessly in the real world?
He has a point though.
United haven’t been able to cope with European competition in 2024/25 despite the luxury of easier opponents and squad rotation for those Thursday night League Phase matches.
The step up to Champions League level will be a gruelling one, sapping energy, morale (if, as is likely, it goes badly), and time on the training ground.
Of course, the money would be useful for Amorim, who needs a major rebuild but will receive limited funds to do so, and there’s no denying the financial and more subtle reputational benefits of returning to the Champions League.
But it could make the mess even worse.
A campaign without any midweek football would be a blessing for Amorim; a clean, clear season with time for the tactical stuff but also, frankly, time to breathe. The media circus around Man Utd is constant and exhausting.
One match a week, rebuilding the foundations slowly and patiently, is what the club needs.
But it’s not what it demands.
Champions League participation is an urgent target. It’s quite simply where the club needs to be, whether that’s to satisfy supporters rightly wanting order restored or owners making sponsorship deals around the globe.
The football industry is relentless. There is no time for slow adjustment, for gap years, which brings us to the real “dilemma”; how to completely rebuild Manchester United when every step up the ladder only makes the job more difficult.
Last week, the podcast Football Clichés pointed out that the 30-year journey Liverpool took after their 1990 title is startlingly similar in tone and trophy count to United’s path since 2013, and that if we put them on the same trajectory then Man Utd are at about the stage when Liverpool signed Djibril Cisse.
It’s a terrifying thought, but entirely possible that United are coming up to the midpoint in a 30-year stretch between league titles. The only way to shift out of that time line is to hope for a genius manager to be given time, space, and money to break the mould.
For money, Amorim needs United in the Champions League.
For time and space, he needs them out of it.
Man Utd are more than a shambles, they’re a paradox; too big to buy in the up-and-comers market, too far off the elite to attract the star players that can lift them into it.
They are a behemoth made weaker by their own power.
Get into the Champions League, don’t get into the Champions League. Does it count as a “dilemma” if both paths lead to the same outcome?
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