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THURSDAY | JAN 8, 2026

Malaysian Paper

Betrayed at the Theatre of Dreams

Bethell ton stalls Aussies

- Story on page 28

Ex-Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim. – REUTERSPIC

Amorim didn’t get everything right but he isn’t to blame for the sorry state of Manchester United

Solskjaer in talks over shock return

Ű BY HARRY BRENT

ginal gains” and British billionaire grit. Instead, he’s delivered a masterclass in how to get everything wrong simultane ously. He brought in a system-manager for a squad that couldn’t play the system. He stuck by him when he was objectively ter rible and should have been binned. He spent a King’s ransom on “Amorim players”, only to sack the chef the moment the ingredients started simmer ing. Amorim isn’t blameless. He’s a man who saw a burning building and decided the best solution was to throw more 3-4 3 at it. He’s also fallen out with people at a rate Prince Harry would be proud of. But he has been fundamentally betrayed by a hierarchy that doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up. Amorim has been made the fall guy for a boardroom that is out of its depth. He was hired to be a visionary, kept as a mascot during a crisis, and discarded as a nuisance the moment things started to move forward. If Ratcliffe is truly looking for the per son responsible for the dysfunction, the lack of identity and the grotesque waste of resources at Old Trafford, he doesn’t need to look at the dugout. He needs to look in a mirror. Under the Ineos chairman’s watch, the Theatre of Dreams has remained the Theatre of Memes. And if Amorim has been shoved out the door because of it, Ratcliffe should be following him. – Express Newspapers

of football that made David Moyes’ seven-crosses-a-minute approach look progressive. That was the time to act. That was the moment to admit the experiment had failed. Instead, Sir Jim stood firm, watching the club rot from the comfort of his gleaming executive lounge, lovingly financed by axing the tea ladies, the receptionists and anyone else who’d ever asked for milk with their brew. Then came the summer. Having sur vived a season Luton Town would have been a little embarrassed about, Amorim was handed the keys to the vault. A quarter of a billion pounds was splurged on players specifically head hunted to fit a system that hadn’t worked for six months. To be fair, if sticking with Amorim was the plan, this was the only sensible course of action. But not if you’re going to sack him a few months later with the team sitting in their highest League position since he arrived. United were sixth, level on points with fifth-place Chelsea and just three points off the top four. For the first time in the Amorim era, there was a faint, flickering light at the end of the tunnel that wasn’t an oncom ing train. Pulling the plug now is about as daft as handing Harry Maguire the cap tain’s armband again. Ratcliffe has spent stupidly, fired needlessly and flip-flopped between hare-brained schemes. He arrived with the promise of “mar

W ITH one swift swing of the axe, Manchester United have reclaimed their crown as the banter club of the Premier League. It turns out stability is a severe allergen at Old Trafford – the moment things look settled, the club breaks out in hives and hits the self destruct button. The news that Ruben Amorim has been sacked isn’t just another entry in the “Managerial Meat Grinder” diary – it’s definitive proof that the Sir Jim Ratcliffe era has the tactical depth of a Wayne Rooney team-talk and the fore sight of a man trying to fix a leaky roof by setting fire to the house. Amorim has been betrayed, plain and simple. He hasn’t been sacked for failing, he’s been sacked because the man at the top is playing Football Manager with a broken mouse and a heavy ego. From the second Amorim walked through the door with his tactical white board and his unwavering devotion to 3 4-3, we knew there would be trouble. Expecting this Manchester United squad to transition into a slick, wing back-heavy system was like expecting Donald Trump to look good in a bikini. It was never going to fit properly, it looked painful for everyone involved, and frankly, it was an affront to public decency. Yet, Ratcliffe backed him. And he didn’t just back him, he watched as the club plummeted to 15th, playing a brand

- Story on page 29

SEA Games rematch for Pearly-Thinaah

- Story on page 31

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