Ruben Amorim on Kobbie Mainoo and other stubborn pig-headed Premier League foolishness | OneFootball

We’re starting to think that banishing Kobbie Mainoo from the Man Utd starting XI might not have been the smartest move the very stubborn Ruben Amorim made during his ill-starred reign at Old Trafford.

But it’s not the only pig-headed foolishness to engulf the Premier League this season. It’s one of precisely five pig-headed foolishnesses to engulf the Premier League this season.

And these are they.

Ruben Amorim on Kobbie Mainoo

The numbers are hilariously stark.

Kobbie Mainoo started none of Manchester United’s first 21 Premier League games this season, of which they won only eight.

He has started all four of Manchester United’s last four Premier League games, of which they have won all four.

Mainoo has already played more Premier League minutes this season for Michael Carrick than he did for Ruben Amorim. The longest appearance with which he was trusted by the former boss was a whole second half against Burnley in August when he replaced the injured Mason Mount at the break.

Other than that, he subsisted on cameos. Thirteen minutes here. Seven minutes there. Twenty-four minutes against Brentford if he was lucky.

It never really made a lot of sense, especially as a) United’s results were frequently cack and b) their midfield was a notable point of weakness with Manuel Ugarte struggling and Casemiro still often playing from (an admittedly impressive) memory.

Had Amorim not gone up in flames and torched himself out of the Man United job, it’s likely Mainoo wouldn’t even be at United right now. He’d be off on loan somewhere in Serie A or Ligue 1 or some other such indignity.

Instead, he’s been perhaps the key ingredient in Michael Carrick’s astonishing straightforward United revolution in which his masterplan has, distilled to its essence, involved picking his best available players in their best positions.

It always sounds like a back-handed compliment when put like that, but it really isn’t. The fact what Carrick has done looks simple and obvious isn’t his fault; he deserves credit for spotting that overcomplication was the problem here and seeking to remedy it.

But watching Mainoo get better with every passing post-Amorim game, to the point on Saturday lunchtime when he was effortlessly running the game against an admittedly awful and self-sabotaging Spurs, it was impossible not to feel that all of it just damns Amorim entirely.

United fans should at least be grateful that Amorim huffed his way out of the job before it was all too late. Thomas Tuchel probably feels similarly.

Mr Marinakis on Nuno Espirito Santo

In a rare moment of foresight, we saw this one coming. The way Forest ended last season. The way Mr Marinakis spent the summer bristling with main character energy over the European competition saga and the Morgan Gibbs-White saga and winning out in both those sagas always spelled trouble for Nuno.

Anything other than a fast start to the season was going to see Mr Marinakis search once again for that unmatchable high of being front and centre in everything.

An opening-day win over Brentford sent entirely misleading signals about both teams’ trajectories, but it mattered not. The die had been cast over the closing months of 24/25 and the summer, despite Nuno signing a new contract in June.

Two winless games and further disgruntlement and disagreement over transfer dealings and more was all it took. Nuno didn’t survive the first interlull of the season, and was replaced by Ange Postecoglou in Mr Marinakis’ second refusal to accept the objective reality of the world around him.

He does score some points for at least wising up to that one pretty quick-smart and taking his Dycheball medicine.

But it could all still end in relegation and has already led to a needless squandering of so much progress, momentum and goodwill built up last season.

Tottenham on Thomas Frank and relegation

We’re tempted to include Frank himself and the media here, because while Spurs fans have been noisily sh*tting themselves for several weeks now it really does only now seem to have hit home with some that this is a club on its arse and facing a very real relegation battle for which it seems ill-suited and entirely unprepared.

Matt Law in today’s Telegraph has breathlessly declared that if Spurs don’t beat Newcastle tonight they might ‘soon’ have to accept relegation is a realistic prospect. If by ‘soon’ he in fact means several weeks ago, perhaps during a window in which it is possible to procure more players for a squad ravaged by injuries and its own stupidity, then he’s absolutely bang on.

Spurs have won two Premier League games since October. We really aren’t at all sure how the reality that has been clear for so long is only now sneaking up on Frank’s adoring media fanboys.

He’s also spent at least the last two months talking complete and utter bollocks about windmills and encouraging performances and saying things like “if you keep the ball out of the net then you have a better chance of winning” to nods of appreciation from the waiting press pack.

We don’t know how he’s fooled them, but we have a better idea about how he’s fooled the new broom at Spurs. Because the people now in day-to-day charge of a post-Levy Spurs appear to be – and we don’t wish to be unkind here – idiots, nepo-babies and fools.

They had their wallets thoroughly inspected by Fabio Paratici, who was supposed to be staying on at Spurs for the rest of the January transfer window (no further signings) before starting his new job at Fiorentina (five further signings).

We’ve already seen this season that on-field results can be truly catastrophic without bothering big-club suits, as long as you’re willing to accept your place and not speak out. Neither Ruben Amorim nor Enzo Maresca can have too many complaints about being cast out by United and Chelsea, but the offences that ultimately did for them were incredibly small and twatty.

Frank has cast an increasingly foolish figure this season, frequently not on top of his brief in press conferences at all, failing to spot he was using an Arsenal-branded coffee cup at Bournemouth and, yes, just saying increasingly stupid things.

But he’s smart enough never to criticise the fragile egos of the clown-car operation now in charge of this football club.

The extraordinary thing isn’t that Spurs could very possibly get relegated; the extraordinary thing is that they’ve done absolutely nothing to address a prospect that has grown alarmingly more real with every passing game.

We’ve stopped even calling Spurs games El Sackicos now. We don’t even think defeat to Newcastle tonight would be enough. Nor would defeat to Arsenal in their next league game.

We’re not even certain that dropping into the bottom three itself – a prospect that is now just three games away – would do it.

We feel like we’re taking crazy pills.

Arne Slot on Dominik Szoboszlai

Can Dominik Szoboszlai play right-back? Yes. Should Dominik Szoboszlai play right-back? Ideally no.

He’s an excellent footballer and, like many excellent footballers, he is capable of doing a serviceable job in an unfamiliar position.

But it’s become far too much of a go-to option for an increasingly unmoored Arne Slot in an increasingly strife-addled Liverpool season.

There’s a real sense here of Slot trying to bottle lightning, trying to recapture something that has been lost.

Trent Alexander-Arnold was brilliant at being a right-back-cum-playmaker so it’s understandable for Slot to try and recreate that magic by putting another supremely talented playmaker there.

But it really isn’t that simple. If it was, then everyone would do it.

The situation came to a head, of course, on Sunday. But this has all been brewing up for some time now.

Slot’s hand has been forced slightly by a shortage of available options, but crowbarring a very capable attacking midfielder into the right-back role has been a double victory for silliness, lessening Liverpool’s attacking capabilities while increasing defensive vulnerability.

Sure, being right-back doesn’t stop him treating 30-yard free-kicks as penalties and that’s all well and good until he’s caught out of position to play everyone onside for an equaliser before brainlessly getting himself suspended to prevent a goal that was never going to matter.

He has at least turned a few more people against VAR, so it wasn’t a complete waste. But playing him at right-back absolutely is.

Crystal Palace on Marc Guehi and Oliver Glasner

Palace were right to put their foot down at the end of the summer transfer window and tell Liverpool ‘Sorry, time’s up’ when they came knocking late for Guehi having been distracted for far too long by the shinier if far less necessary Alexander Isak.

Palace’s mistake was in then burying their heads in the sane for the next four months and acting surprised when Glasner was pissed off at the lack of support he and his team were receiving from above.

There are limits to what Palace can do. They were never going to keep Glasner forever any more than they were going to be able to keep Guehi. But for reasons inside and outside their control they have let a once-in-a-lifetime breakthrough season shatter into nothingness, and that all feels a bit unnecessary and careless.

Maybe signing Brennan Johnson and Jorgen Strand Larsen with their three Premier League goals for fellow relegation battlers will solve everything in the end. But we have some doubts.