Unbending coach takes his side to Liverpool on Sunday, with attempts to kick club on undermined by a decade of misrule
The thought had always been that it couldn’t happen now. It’s just not possible in modern football that a super-club could be relegated. Manchester United may have gone down in 1974 but it’s not going to happen in 2025. Even when Ruben Amorim said that United were in a relegation battle after Monday’s 2-0 defeat by Newcastle, he was making the point to shock.
And it’s not going to happen now. United will not be relegated. They probably only need 15 points from the second half of the season to be safe and the financial structure of modern football means there are at least three sides worse than them. Yet it’s significant that Amorim could mention relegation without it sounding entirely absurd, revealing that it feels worth doing the calculation, working out what sort of tally might be necessary for United to survive. What has happened at United since Sir Alex Ferguson left feels like thought experiment made flesh: what would it take for the most successful side in English history to go down?
Written by Jonathan Wilson
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2025/jan/04/ruben-amorim-shaping-up-manchester-united-fall-guy under the title “Ruben Amorim shapes up as Manchester United’s fall guy but rot runs deeper | Jonathan Wilson”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
