How Ruben Amorim genius set Man Utd up to beat Liverpool in Champions League race | OneFootball

This season’s run-in looks sure to be one for the ages, with proper scraps in the offing for absolutely everything.

There’s a genuine title race, so that’s nice, there are at least three and possibly still four teams scrambling to avoid the final relegation spot, while literally everyone else not in the relegation fight is within six points of a Europa Conference spot for finishing seventh.

And then there’s an almighty rumble for the remaining Champions League places. We can now safely assume that fifth place will once again deliver Champions League football given all nine of the Premier League’s European competitors this season remain in action, and so it’s either a three-way fight for the last two spots or a four-way fight for three if Aston Villa continue to drop back and make it interesting.

It does now seem unlikely for an interloper from outside the current top six to break in, so it will be a Europa League consolation prize for whoever misses out on the Big Cup.

The efforts of those nine European teams in all-but securing a fifth Champions League spot is doubly significant to the current race, because Manchester United are conspicuously not one of those nine teams after that defeat in Bilbao last May that just looks more and more ridiculous with every day that passes.

But that humiliation was followed by another at Grimsby in the second round of this season’s Carabao and then a third-round FA Cup exit at home to Brighton when United were still at a low ebb under interim Darren Fletcher before becoming the bestest team in the land under interim Michael Carrick.

We must now concede that Ruben Amorim is some kind of mad genius, because all his seemingly inexplicable disasters and catastrophes and mistakes and stubbornness have served to hand United a monumental series of advantages in the current fight for Champions League qualification.

It was Amorim who so adroitly ensured United would not be bogged down by the demands of European football this season. A masterful strategy. He then coordinated what, at the time, appeared to be an all-time low with that early Carabao exit. He was playing 4D chess all along.

He can’t take full credit for the Brighton defeat, but his fingerprints were all over it.

The upshot is that Manchester United will play just 40 games of first-team football this season. In other words, the shortest season a Premier League team can possibly have. And an astonishing luxury for a Champions League challenger to enjoy – especially in a season where two of the three teams in the fight to avoid 18th do have European commitments to contend with.

It’s not a new observation, but the sheer extent of the advantage United have on the run-in having manufactured the unusual situation of being in spectacular form but with only Premier League games to play is stark.

Chelsea have already played more games this season than Man United will by the end of May. Liverpool have reached 40, and Villa have played 38.

And then there’s the miles in the legs of individual players. Here United’s advantage is particular clear against a Liverpool team who have leaned heavily on a few key players.

That Virgil van Dijk at 34 years young has barely missed a meaningful minute of Liverpool’s season is an extraordinary testament to his fitness and work ethic, but feels alarmingly unsustainable. He’s already played over 3400 minutes of football for Liverpool this season; over 1000 more than any United player.

Even the identity of United’s busiest player this season reveals how missing out on everything outside the league’s bread and butter can be a boon. Few would have had Luke Shaw down as any team’s most-used player in big 2026, yet there he sits atop United’s list but with a mere 2363 minutes of service.

Even if we look only at outfield players, seven Liverpool men have played more than that. As well as six from Chelsea and four from Aston Villa.

And yet there’s more, again thanks to Amorim’s visionary foresight that was so misunderstood in its own time. By cleverly ostracising Harry Maguire and Kobbie Mainoo for no reason, United not only have a fresher squad in general, but two key players who are yet to even tick over 1000 minutes this season.

Amorim stumbled so Carrick could fly, but there really could be some nasty shocks for Liverpool’s weary limbs. It’s been a trying season at Anfield and won’t get easier.