Ruben Amorim axed: what now for Manchester United? Football Weekly

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:30As is Football Weekly tradition, they waited until we'd finished. Turns out his post-match presser after the Leeds game was a 10 on the Maresca scale. How do we view his tenure? Not well. So many, is this the turning point? So many, have they turned a corner? And the following game? No. Was there anything good about it? And how much was his intransigence, the quality or the application of the players, or Jason Wilcox and above? And what happens next? DNA's Darren Fletcher's at the wheel. Oli Glasner is the favourite. It does make sense. An elite Manchester United panel for you. Your questions.

0:58and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

1:06On the panel today, Barry Glendening, welcome. Hi Max. Norlie Chowdhury, welcome. Hello. The Guardian's Manchester football correspondent, Jamie Jackson. All right Jamie. Greetings. And from Morocco, just to get as far away as he possibly could, from Old Trafford, John Bruin is here. Hey John. Hi Max. Hi team. So Ruben Amarim has departed his role as head coach of Manchester United, not manager. He was appointed in November 2024. God, it feels like years before that, doesn't it? With Manchester United sitting sixth in the Premier League, the club said the club's leadership has reluctantly made the decision that it is the right time to make a change.

1:42This will give the team the best opportunity of the highest possible Premier League finish. The club would like to thank Ruben for his contribution to the club and wishes him well for the future. Darren Fletcher will take charge of the team against Burnley on Wednesday. Amrim's coaching team have also left. he won 25 of his 63 games in charge his 14 month stint is the shortest of a permanent manager since david moyes was sacked after eight months in 2014 according to opta he had the worst win ratio 32 the worst goals conceded per game ratio 1.53 and the lowest clean sheet ratio 15 some accolades for him to take with him of the premier league era that is look jamie you're on the beat why is this Why has this happened now?

2:24Well, I think he's just got a bit cheesed off. Well, both sides have really, but I mean, it all sort of kind of climaxed on Friday. He wasn't happy anyway because his Semenyo money, one Semenyo, you know, looked like he's going to Manchester City, was not available for another sort of major signing as he sort of thought it would be logically. You can sort of see the thinking. But them saying, no, you're not going to have that money is part of sort of reservations that they've had for a little while. two or three times this season I've been told well he needs to start winning from people who've sort of got a bit of power there etc etc Manu's an interesting example of this they didn't want to sell Manu because they thought Manu might outlast Amarin which has now been proved and obviously Manu's a really good player he's 20 years old kind of the future of United actually when he said on Christmas Eve to us all Kobe Manu quote is the future of Manchester United my ears pricked up I was thinking why is he saying that because he never picks the guy you know he's not started in the Premier League and all the rest of it And I think that was because he'd basically been told or was aware of the thinking.

3:24So Wilcox, yeah, on Friday, as I understand it, before our press conference was a 1.15 at Carrington, there was, let's say, a heated debate between Wilcox and Amman. With regard to the Wolves game, when he'd gone back to a 3-4-3, they'd stunk the place out, really. They got a draw against Wolves. Wolves played all right, but, you know, they arrived with two points, left with three. And this was after he'd played a four against Newcastle on Boxing Day. and they looked after Eason actually, Dogu played really well as a sort of right-sided number 10, scored the goal, number four at the back, and oh, a little bit of tactical flexibility.

3:56But yeah, there was that. And I actually sort of on Friday asked him about a comment he made on Christmas Eve, sort of when he said, actually, I may well switch my 3-4-3 because I'm now starting to understand that I can't get the big players for that system. And I thought, why is he saying that now, a year in? Did you not understand that when you came in? And basically, in a nutshell, I asked him that on Friday and he sort of, I'm sure we're all aware of what happened, he batted it away and then right at the end of the answer, he sort of said, well, yeah, you're a smart guy, as in you sort of sussed it a little bit because I mentioned Wilcox or a chat about budget and then that then led to Sunday post-leads and we all know what happened there, the sort of scattergun, very odd.

4:33I am the manager, not the head coach and if you ask me, was it a back me or sack me? I thought it was just a sack me that. I just want to get out of here. So that's kind of my reading of it all. So, I mean, you are the smart guy, jamie that's the point is that the greatest compliment and well done jamie for crawl bearing that it was you he was referring to yeah yeah i mean i just i just could not believe he said that because on christmas eve as i say coby mainly was the top line of that story but at the end of the story i remember speaking to john brodkin our football editor so look there's this quote at the end on another day i would suggest this is the top story you know him saying i i'm now starting to understand that i can't get the big players for my 3-4-3 so i need to change i was like you know that's an interesting thing to say as i say over a year in and that was basically the premise of my question on the friday i stored it up over a week later for you know for the right moment to ask him and so i you know i asked him it and it's interesting in a sort of previous media world at united you would not or i would not have been allowed a follow-up and then a third follow basically it was one it used to be one question like ten hags sort of times you get one question and they try and take the microphone off you or just you know the press office but because i was allowed to follow it up and follow it up again in the end he sort of broke i know when i mentioned the budget part the clause of the question it was a little smile and then when i mentioned wilcox he couldn't he couldn't help himself you're like paxman was it hessel tides asking the same question again and again and again you finally yes you got him this is your story um the reaction then from our manchester united uh panelists noz one i mean there's various reasons why why united fans wanted the glazers out one was the obvious one about them leeching money out of the club but the other was that they were not interested in football.

6:14And you kind of felt as if with Ineos, or you hoped that it would be football men making football decisions. What sort of concerns me most about this whole situation is, I'm sad that Amrim's gone and I liked him, but I can totally appreciate the argument for why he did go because results weren't good enough. The thing that concerns me is is this are these blurred lines and people interfering and this idea that Ratcliffe's getting involved in things that don't concern him in terms of his out of his expertise in terms of football because first of all I mean Jamie will be able to sort of like uh provide sort of context for this but I get the sense that the last week or so Amrin has genuinely been trying to keep a lid on it, I think Amram's tried not to sort of erupt.

7:08And I think it's, I mean, Jamie doing his job, James Ducker doing his job. It's sort of, they've got it out of him and they've sort of like turned the knob, sort of like got him to sort of like a sort of coax out of him. And then he's just erupted and said how he felt. But I think he was trying to keep a lid on it. But one of the most interesting comments I found was the Gary Nebel comment, this idea of him making a pointed comment to somebody about Gary Neville having too much of an influence. And I don't think that was a dig at Gary Neville because Gary Neville just does his job as a pundit.

7:40I think that was a dig at somebody senior to him basically saying, why are you listening to Gary Neville? Why are you paying attention to Gary Neville when you should be backing me? And reading between the lines, I don't think for one second, whatever you think of Wilcox, I don't think for one second, or Vival, I don't think they would sort of turn around to Amrum and say like, oh, Gary Neville says this but i do fear that someone like ratcliffe would and the sounds that we're hearing about sort of ratcliffe wanting a 442 ratcliffe sort of suggesting um and boomo at fullback it's like who do you think you are like amram doesn't advise um um sort of ratcliffe on sort of petrol sort of like uh dollars or like or like how to pollute the sort of uh environment like like what who is he that we know of that we know and and this is what concerns me about going going forward like you can say okay amarin was the wrong guy and fair enough get rid of him what chance has the new guy got if you've got all this interference my favorite chairman getting involved story is at cardiff city vincent tan had seen a goalkeeper score a goal and then went to the manager i forget who it was and just saying have you thought about getting your keeper to shoot it's not such a great game like let's really oversimplify this i mean i suppose on amarin before we get to upstairs and the sort of chaos above him vivelle the head of recruitment isn't it and berardi and and wilcox like amarin's intransigence with this formation i mean it has been tiring for podcasters i mean it must have been tiring for fans it is odd isn't it manchester now you just weren't fun to watch to work appointment viewing you'd you know you'd close the curtains if they're playing in your back garden sort of because they're just bad to watch now our jeremy paxton friend here jj uh hit on something with the personality of amaran i always found him when i've been in press conferences with him quite immature he's a 40 odd year old man he has children uh i was telling you max that i was up in michelsfield over christmas friends of mine had met him at sort of youth football with his sons playing it's a really nice guy lovely man but there's a prickliness about him and he obviously has an ego and he has that intransigence that you mentioned and it doesn't fit in the structure such as it is at manchester united and his and people like jamie here can ask him questions and they know that he's going to give an answer and that actually and as also as jamie said he's self-detonated at a certain point he just thought i've had enough here he will be okay he'll get another job somewhere he's out of the club and the football was terrible to watch it was worse than it was under ten hagen you name any list of these managers i've forgotten how many there are now uh you know you're yearning for ralph rannik at a certain point the results this season weren't that bad but you also had to consider that there's so many other teams in transition not really getting anywhere they don't have europe so he's having all week to train the players and then they still play this this constipated imodium football that I just we were talking the other day weren't we about you know I'm out to Morocco I'm at the African Nations are you going to watch the Leeds game now I did catch the Leeds game and I actually thought United played well in the second half it was quite there was stuff happening and you mentioned in Wemo that that evening I saw him play for Cameroon and that's not a fullback Jim that is a he was the best creative player on the pitch he looked absolutely wonderful and it's like and and i'm sure we'll get on to the gym thing but the problem is billionaire egos control so much of our lives these days don't they and if a billionaire buys into a club and jim will put in a structure and say oh it's all about what uh you know we'll work through the structure the structure is actually what jim says goes and that's how he wants it to operate and someone like ruben amarin who has a sense of self-worth is eventually going to turn around and say, I'm not having it.

11:39And that's essentially what's happened here. I'll miss the song. I won't miss Ruben Amorim. I don't think Ruben Amorim, apart from the nice cafes and Old Leeds, will miss his time at Manchester United. But I wish him the best of luck. Kind of alluded to it yesterday. I think he wanted to be fired. You don't make incendiary comments like that in a press conference without knowing there's a very good chance you will be sacked. It was a blatant act of insubordination, much the same as Enzo Mareska's. And if you behave like that and you don't have the results to back it up, you will get sacked. I think he wanted to be sacked.

12:17And I think he now gets to leave Manchester United. And he can say with some justification that he wasn't sacked because of bad results. He was sacked because he made these comments that the club hierarchy didn't approve of. And that's fair enough. He leaves with a big payoff. I don't think his reputation has particularly suffered. He's just some other bloke who's been through the Manchester United meat grinder. And he'll rock up somewhere else and he may very well be successful. I mean, he was very wedded to this three formation. As we know, he did change it a couple of times, occasionally to good effect.

13:08But Manchester United knew that when he came in, and they knew he needed the players to adapt to that, or they knew he needed to bring in players who could play to that system. But as far as I can tell, they don't have the money to buy players now. so it was never really going to work and for all that I thought he was a nice bloke I thought he was a welcome addition to the Premier League I enjoyed listening to him talk and yeah I'd be interested to see where he ends up next he did say look not even the Pope were getting to change formation then he changed it for a game against Newcastle he also one point called his side the worst Manchester United side in history I wonder Noz on your Amorim journey like has it always been this isn't going to work or have you had moments you've thought oh i've seen a little i've seen something here i feel like we've had this conversation before like oh i saw something a thing or is that just like a helpless hopeless fan clinging to something i mean i i completely agree with john in that a lot of it was just arduous to watch a lot of people in the last 24 hours or 48 hours have referred to underlying numbers and underlying numbers are good so that that suggests that there was something going right sort of within the sort of like formation or whatever.

14:23But this whole, again, like hiring Amorim, like what was the point? That's what the most frustrating thing is, is like, what was all this for? Like when Liverpool were looking to replace Klopp, they had Slott and Amorim as their shortlist. They decided against Amorim because they decided that an employer manager who was so wedded to that three at the back would be too much of a change and it would cost too much money, which has played out at United. So why did we go through all that period of him saying, I'm not going to change from three at the back, I'm not going to change from three at the back.

15:02You had Wilcox, they entrust the process, Amrim's doing the right thing, it's going in the right direction, and then suddenly deciding, no, no, it needs to be four, we need to change the ball. He has throughout, you can say what you like about Armour. I agree, he's petulant, he's emotional. Really, as good a job as Jamie and others did in press conferences, he shouldn't have took the bait. He should have had more sense and been more professional than to sort of like ball for that. But if there's one thing he is, it's he's honest. And he has been honest, this is how I play. So like in the end, you kind of think we went through that as fans.

15:45We bought into that. You as a club told us he plays three at the back. This is the long game. We're going to waste half a season where we're going to be rubbish, but it's a longer process. And in the end, what was it? It was for nothing. Although to be fair, you've never been on the end of the Jamie Jackson question at a press conference. It's like the FBI, you know, you talk and then he goes out, someone comes out and then Jamie goes back in and says, you know, the bad cop will get him. um look we'll do more is it is jamie good cop or bad cop he's bad cop clearly he's clearly get him in get him in he slams his head on the table and goes you will testify ruben you will testify anyway that'll do for part one we'll do the board in part two

16:33welcome to part two of the guardian football weekly so look jamie we've got jason wilcox we mentioned a lot you've got oma barada the chief executive got the head of recruitment christopher vivelle and inios and you've got bigs of jim inios and tell me if there's anyone i've missed and there probably are thousands all those bald guys sitting in the stand in he also always talk about like best in class decision making sort of great sort of linkedin bollocks and like if you think yeah if you think about thank you john um if you think about you know keeping ten hagg after the the FA Cup giving him what 200 million to spend changing the whole backroom staff getting rid of Ten Hag appointing Ashworth Dan Ashworth going getting Amorim backing him with lots of money then sacking him I think fans are probably going sorry someone else's head needs to roll too it's like this is not best-in-class decision making yeah 100 % the sort of you know inside piece in today's Guardian that are rolled basically it says everything you just said that you know sort of

17:33Barada basically appointed Wilcox. They know each other from Manchester City. Now, when I did the story on Sunday night saying that he could go, his future's in the balance, I was told that in any sort of face-off or power struggle between Wilcox and Ameren, there'd only be one winner. Not only because this is the structure, but because Barada's wedded to Wilcox. So you then extrapolate from that and you say, well, so Jim Ratcliffe is like his old man, putting it politely. Some might say a loose cannon. He does what he likes, what he likes sort of thing. And if he's now starting to... Everything you just cataloged then is basically embarrassing, humiliating, you know, a farce.

18:07So if Sir Jim Rackley wakes up one morning and thinks, wait a minute, I'm looking like a bit of a chump here. And, you know, and who's responsible for this? Well, it's Barada, actually. You know, the chief executive employed Wilcox. I could see, you know, a world or a scenario where one or both of those at some point are chocked. I'm not saying it's going to happen today or tomorrow, but you are completely correct. I mean, you know, Ash was an interesting one. I think we all probably picked up on it. I think he went because he didn't fancy hammering, because of everything that Noz just said. You know, what we're all saying, everyone could see.

18:39I mean, you know, he thought it was a bad fit. I mean, I will just sort of drop in this. If you're an elite footballer, which Manchester United is supposed to deal in, we can all argue about how many they've actually got. You should, I would argue, a bit like a coach, be able to adapt your game, right? So you're playing, say, as a fullback, a career fullback, you come up that way. if the coach turned around and said well you know i want you to play wing back i don't think that's that big a step because surely a fullback is supposed to bomb up and down the the wing you know and defend as a sort of wing back so there is that part of it how much is that is an excuse um but i you know as i i several times during his tenure which was 14 months some of the stuff he was saying so some of the things you mentioned now i was in the room for that you know the pope thing, the worst team ever.

19:24And you're sitting there and you're thinking, this is like some sort of interesting experiment. How much of this United, this is Ratcliffe, Barada, et cetera, are going to accommodate before they go, wait a minute. He's got some novelty value at the start. He's got some sort of, he's got some clatter on the bank. He's just been employed. But as the results start to sort of nosedive and nosedive and nosedive, listen, I got told a tale. I can't remember which game it was. Basically, it emerged that he'd smashed up a TV. But what I actually got told was he started crying. yes he started crying about in in the dressing room whether this tv apparently was smashed up which he may have done as part of this but i was told he started he was in he was in tears and that was that sort of took staff and whoever else was there a little bit of back as i should say you know this is an interesting development i'm not saying there's anything wrong with tears don't get me wrong but you know so i mean in that context it was a surprise yeah i mean i think someone said temperamental you know you're completely correct about him volatile um but Again, you can do whatever you like in sport if you win, right?

20:21It's as simple as that, yes? This is why Ferguson... You know what it's like? You know what I was at the Grimsby game? The tactics board he gets out. If Grimsby is being stuffed 5-0, oh, he's not a genius, but you don't give a what's here, do you? But because it's all about results. And so some of the things he was coming out with... I mean, I was someone who's been there since Ferguson, last season after the Ferguson covering them. So this is a new development. They've got almost like a sort of, I don't know how to describe it. It's almost like a sort of, some sort of character out of a comic in a way.

20:58And I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but just sort of like so colourful and kind of in his own way vibrant. But yeah, some of the stuff he was saying, I think John was right. In a way, you could say he's quite immature the way in which, you know, part of the Pope quote was, this is my existence, about the 343, not changing it. this is my existence this is my life you know it's sort of you know how we believe in the 3-4-3 you're just thinking it's not worth it that much you know he didn't ask to be born you know he didn't ask to be born that's that's that's how he just i remember i mean if i was sat with the great jamie jackson at one of these press conferences and it it was a game of fun we did earlier last year and uh he his behavior in that press because he's sort of smirking at some of the questions like oh what are you asking me that and just like it's like that's not really how you're supposed to carry yourself but I think the thing is though within that I developed a bit of an affection for him I didn't think he's a bad person or anything like that but you're talking about the structure of the club Jason Wilcox now there's a guy headed for you would have thought pariah status after this he's the guy almost carrying the cam for this now isn't he after of the stories we've heard.

22:10I think most Manchester United fans would probably have Toya Wilcox in charge rather than him. One for the dads. But yes, you know, it's like this sporting director thing, we've seen it with Chelsea. I mean, Chelsea have five sporting directors. So that creates this, you know, they've got a five-a-side team of sporting directors for the fans to hate. And that's what United fans have now, don't they? Because this sporting director structure that we have, of course with big Jim at the top it's it doesn't make sense to us in England even though they've had these they've had these things in Italy in Spain but one of the things is Jason Wilcox very rarely speaks on the record so we don't really know much about him other than him being a player for Blackburn many years ago and say you're in Italy that the sporting director will speak and we'll just tell what's going on so we don't really know what their thoughts are and we don't hear them on the record too often and they might give it off off the record briefings to the likes of sir jamie here but it's so you you've got these people that people can't relate to and they're making the decisions and the thing is if those decisions are good sporting directors like michael edwards was lionized at liverpool for a long time are heroes but the problem is they don't have anything tangible to back it up and so people like, what actually do these blokes do?

23:33And we don't know. And Amarim's job was to coach the team, which he wasn't particularly successful at. So people can judge him for that. And all you can judge the decision makers at Manchester United is the success of their decisions. And that decision making has been repeatedly disastrous since Big Sir Jim came in. Noz, would you like a total clear out? Like what's the fans desire? I don't think the blame starts and ends with Amarim. That's the thing. I don't want it to be seen as if I'm defending Amerim, but it doesn't end with him. The thing is that we had Fergie and Fergie was this genius, this once-in-a-multi-generational genius who could do so much.

24:19And he was a genuine manager. He was probably the last great manager in the old sense. But ever since, it's almost as if we've been looking for the next Ferguson. and the next Ferguson doesn't exist, not only because someone as good as Ferguson doesn't exist, but the role of Ferguson doesn't exist. So instead of getting one person who's going to magically make up an okay, what you need to do in the modern game is have the chain working. You need four or five people in the chain to be really, really good, to succeed. And if anyone in that chain is not good, then it falls down. And the concern is it's such a mess.

24:59And I think the fans have lost all trust in Ineos and lost all trust in the suits. Because you've got Ashworth, who was brought in before Barada was in place. Barada, he wasn't Barada's guy. They got rid of him. Then they got Amorim, who was Barada's choice, but he wasn't Wilcox's choice. and then you've got Wilcox who's who's a suit who doesn't sit at press conferences who doesn't have to face Jamie who who sort of like is making these decisions and then is I find it weak that that you've got Ratcliffe saying he wants to play four at the back and Wilcox accepting that and then sort of forwarding that on and it's like have some integrity about your role and your expertise So then you've got Wilcox essentially telling Amorim how to set out his team.

25:52And this whole thing about Amorim being either a manager or a coach, even if he's the head coach, at the very least, give the head coach the autonomy to pick his team and pick his formation. If nothing else, let him do that. So, I mean, in short, it's all a mess. It's all going wrong. And whoever United employ next, it's not going to work until anything else changes. You need to get rid of these blurred lines and everyone needs to know exactly what their territory is. The thing is, a lot of or most of Sir Jim Ratcliffe's forays into sport under the Ineos banner have been unsuccessful. I flagged this up when he arrived on the scene at Old Trafford with David Brailsford as this Smithers type character walking around, bowing up sequentially to him and holding a clipboard.

26:43But the Ineos, when he got involved or took over Sky Cycling, their performances nosedived. His Formula One team is bang average. America's Cup, his sailing team, got slaughtered in the America's Cup final by, I think it was New Zealand. Nice aren't particularly successful or certainly weren't. And I'm not sure how they're getting on this season. but his phrase in sport have been mediocre at best so there is no reason to suppose that his involvement with Manchester United would be anything better than mediocre at best he talks about a good game but he is a bit of a windbag well I mean in the words we don't like uh on the Ineos wheel of words we like words we don't like making the same mistake twice we don't like that don't do dumb shit uh we don't like that and of course uh lukewarm cappuccino i mean anyway uh bs we don't like bs just just just a quick one uh i was chatting to a friend of mine who's a former uh staff member at the club and he was at the big sir jim launch speech you know to the staff yeah big sir jim came in and pretty much said you know i'm here for a good time uh you know I don't need the money.

28:07And within 18 months, everyone in that room pretty much is no longer at the club with cost-cutting exercises. I heard a story also of, and Jamie may know this, she was the receptionist, wasn't she, Kath that died 18 months ago or so. And in the funeral, you walked in, basically, right-hand side, old-style Fergie era, left hand side Big Sur Jim Era no, these two parts of the club were not interacting at all and there's this idea isn't there of people coming into a club and essentially the club is a host being for them rather than what the club was or is and the old United and you know I agree with Noz we can't go back to relive the Fergie days you can't try and retread history but the cuts they've made both with the past and financially have ripped the heart out of the club and so that's why you have this great big hole that amarin found himself fighting against maybe he wasn't equipped to deal with it but it appears those people who have been put in charge by big sir jim are capable of dealing with it either and that's the issue that we have all right we'll talk about what's next in just a second

29:34welcome to part three of the guardian football weekly uh young yorkville says which former manchester united player will be named caretaker manager in 2028 to replace the next manager uh yeah gone back to some dna jamie with darren fletcher who you know ticks all the boxes doesn't he jamie he's you know he's well thought of at the club he seems to be a good up-and-coming coach he's got real connections with the club two of his boys are there etc etc you know we've seen this before with gigs with Carrick with Solskjaer it probably is the right call for now I get I mean who knows yeah it's an interesting one because he was at one stage a technical director which is which was Jason Wilcox's first post you know before he became director of football so what and you know he he's the under 18s coach now and what I'm working up to say is he's kind of he's now been promoted by the same people who kind of demoted him.

30:26And again, fair play to me, he's hung around. But what I'm getting to saying is I just wonder what his fate is going to be long-term at the club. They're talking about an interim possibly to the end of the season, but it might be an interim after this interim. So they might replace Fletcher with Carrick or whoever else. Or it might be Darren Fletcher if he does well. I don't know it all feels yeah a little bit sort of amateurish to be honest this whole not Fletcher I mean what we're talking about here the sort of where United have been since Ferguson left basically I mean it's a work in progress that's been going on for sort of 13 years now right left in May 2013 and it doesn't you know it's Groundhog Day all over again or whatever of a cliche you want to sort of recycle you know I'll be at the game tomorrow at Burnley.

31:18They may well win. They may not. But I just, I think structurally the club is in a lot of trouble. And it's interesting because I completely accept that Ferguson, as Noz said, you know, he's definitely a genius, but he was a manager in a sort of, maybe a former time of football. But I actually think, if you actually think about it, if you wanted to sort United out, you actually, I think you actually do need a football person of, all right, it can't be Ferguson because he's a one-off. I get that. Multi-generation is a great way of describing him, Noz. his unbelievable abilities. But I actually think you need...

31:51Guardiola's got at City. So he has a director of football. It was formerly Bighiorestein, obviously. But he is the closest you've got to a Ferguson now because nothing happens at that club that matters without his say-so. And actually, again, what Noz says is correct because they're at that club. They're all there to serve Guardiola and they're all good at their jobs. You can have an argument about or a debate about other stuff, the country that owns the club and all the rest of it was politics, not particularly palatable. But Alma Barak's a good chairman. Soriano's a good chief executive. But it was all set up for Guardiola.

32:27That's why Pellegrini went in there, I think, for whatever it was, two years, because they're waiting for him to come from Bayern Munich. City, I know United people don't want to hear, but City, with regard to what I'm talking about, what Noz has basically said about how you have to have these people in the chain that are all really good, that is the best example I can think of, that I know of anyway. I know a little bit about. So if you have a director of football, But I still think that director of football has to defer to the manager stroke, head coach, whatever you want to call. Because in the end, it's quite simple, right?

32:51You live or die by your results. And how do you get results? The players. And so, you know, the manager should be allowed or the head coach should be allowed to identify. And within reason, I'm not saying you give the head coach a blank check and he can buy, you know, can buy sort of a left back from the dog and duck. We understand what I'm getting at. You know, he has to have autonomy. What is the point in employing him? What is the point in sort of chucking nine or ten million pound a year at Ameren in this example? if actually you're going to sort of say, well, yeah, you've got all this money and you are, you know, the manager of United, the head coach, has three jobs, lead the team on the field, the training ground and the public face, yes?

33:25You know, the sort of PR stuff that we're talking about has kind of led to his downfall. But if you're not allowing him to sort of do it his way, why employ him? I just don't understand it. I actually think it should be part of the job description of the director of football, for example, the chief executive, they should come and see us, you know, the media, at least twice a year. at least twice a year there's a famous example where it was last season when Tanaga was still in place and Barada and Ashworth as it were, had a sit down with us, the patch people, it was on the morning or midday of the Liverpool game ahead of that game which United lost and you get them in the room and it's interesting because you soon find them out, you soon have them contradicting themselves sort of try to say one thing and then, oh okay, you've said that, what about this and it's like, so they would soon learn very quickly, actually, how difficult it is for Ameren or any head coach to come out and hustle.

34:19And they do it really well most of the time, these managers. But, you know, I really think, because then what would happen is, I sort of believe this is a good quality, they'd have a bit of empathy for, a bit of understanding for, you know, the chief executive and the director will have a bit of understanding for what the head coach has to deal with in the public layer. And I think that would help everyone. But, you know, it's interesting what John said then, just very quickly to round this off. it is factualized the club or actually it was factualized until a lot of basically the former people staff who he's called you know have gone so so i hear this all the time from people who know this there's a real division between the inios and um sort of people and um the non-ineos people and again it's not rocket science it's supposed to be a team sport and that's sounds a bit cheesy but on the field and off the field and if you're not if you're in a football club where people are thinking well am i gonna be the next to be laid off for example how can that have a nice positive, we're all in this together.