How Ruben Amorim can use the past to kick-start Man Utd’s ‘mission’ at Liverpool

It is yet another of those moments where Ruben Amorim is trying to create a new future, only for history - and a more problematic present - to impose on events.

The Manchester United manager won’t use Marcus Rashford for a seventh successive game, after the England forward was ruled out for Sunday due to illness. There was considerable doubt over whether Amorim would have played him anyway but the prospect did weigh over Liverpool’s preparation, since Rashford is one player even Arne Slot’s most experienced defenders had a certain trepidation about. The 27-year-old has scored more times against Liverpool than any other club, with seven goals, and many of those have been big moments for different managers.

One was the crucial clincher in a 2-1 win that was also Erik ten Hag’s first victory as United manager.

How Amorim could do with such intervention in his own first game against Liverpool this Sunday. Rashford’s illness caps another week of headlines for the wrong reasons, including the revelation that the forward has turned down three lucrative offers from the Saudi Pro League. He only wants a top club, if he is to leave... which looks increasingly likely. There are many in the United dressing room who are still stunned by the manager’s treatment of the player, the Independent understands.

That’s probably part of the point. Amorim’s line after the dismal 2-0 defeat to Newcastle United, that “this club needs a shock”, already looks like one that could come to define his tenure. The wonder is whether that will be for good or bad.

The club didn’t really respond to the shock of a 5-0 home defeat to Liverpool in October 2021, a 4-0 in April 2022 or, worst of all, a 7-0 in March 2023. It says much that it certainly wouldn’t be a shock if we see similar this weekend, or even something surpassing Ten Hag’s worst humiliation. That’s just been the direction of the two clubs, going way beyond this season’s wildly contrasting results.

It is striking that, between 1953 and 2021, there were only two Liverpool vs United meetings that involved victories by more than three goals. The teams shared one 4-0 each, with Liverpool’s coming in 1990-91 and United’s in 2002-03.

Amorim is meanwhile figuring out a way to prevent a fourth in the space of just three and a half years. It’s that bad, to go with how the first 35 minutes against Newcastle were that alarming.

There is something bigger here in the history of this rivalry, that again points to the future.

As tough as it got for those at Anfield in the two decades of Sir Alex Ferguson dominance, it was never anything close to this. Liverpool usually fancied giving United a game; an uplifting positive for one club, an aggravating sour note for the other.

Humiliation was rarely felt. There were too many other emotions at play. The bedrock was there to eventually rebuild.

That is why this is even more concerning for United, too, as well as embarrassing. They took solace in a similar defiance during the two decades of Liverpool dominance over the 1970s and 1980s. United always raised it for this rivalry, as witnessed in match-winning heroes like Jimmy Greenhoff and Gordon Strachan.

The recent humiliations are consequently just another sign of the severity of this decline, that is actually even worse given the economics of the modern game. In a world where the league table has a 90 percent correlation to the collective wage bills of clubs, United being this bad shouldn’t actually be possible.

That is an illustration of just how obscenely wasteful the club has been over 10 years, but also why Amorim is being empowered to finally break that cycle. That “shock” he spoke of actually goes beyond results and performances. It is about severe change. This is what Amorim is now attempting. Some at the club even think he should go further.

United have notoriously wallowed in this post-Ferguson decay, which they badly need to shed, but that doesn’t mean the emotional example of the former manager can’t be harnessed. Amorim could do with the defiance of August 1988.

“This isn’t just a job to me,” Ferguson said at the time. “It’s a mission. I am deadly serious about it. Some people would reckon too serious. We will get there, believe me. And when it happens, life will change for Liverpool and everyone else - dramatically.”

Ferguson was at that point in the process of overhauling United’s structure from top to bottom, starting with a dressing room that he saw as culturally toxic. Amorim has to do this even more quickly, and yet with arguably more issues and obstacles.

It is why some maintain there is no internal concern about the head coach’s approach, even if there is an acceptance that performances “shouldn’t be this bad”. There is a view that this form is merely a product of decisions that are overdue. Amorim, in the words of one insider, is making “big dressing-room calls” that are the “right calls”. The problem, as ever in these situations, is that these aren’t necessarily popular calls given the existing chemistry of the squad. That has also been compounded by the dismal atmosphere around the club, and how Ineos is cutting budgets.

United are in another negative cycle in that sense, that needs to be reversed. As Liverpool illustrated in the early years of Jurgen Klopp, improved results on the pitch leads to improved results off it. It is a formula that can “go off like a rocket”, to use the words of one high-profile figure, if you get the right manager. All of that only hastens the need for severe change in the United dressing room.

There, Amorim is also suffering from the club’s modern history of decision-making, and especially the most recent call.

There is actually an argument that Ineos’ first summer was one of the most costly in the entire post-Ferguson era. The decision to stick with Ten Hag but also commit to specific players he wanted potentially set the club back another year or more. It meant any new manager had to change things without a pre-season, but with a squad even further built to different profiles, and harder to shift for that. That makes this January much more difficult, which begs the question over whether Amorim is making it needlessly difficult for himself by persevering with a system that doesn’t fit the squad.

The simple response is that a coach should just coach, and manage with what he has to get through.

The more nuanced response is actually to look over the road. When Pep Guardiola arrived at Manchester City, he said he needed 10 new players. He only got five, which meant his initial 2016-17 season was hugely underwhelming. Guardiola still dogmatically persevered with his philosophy, in order to ingrain an idea.

It was still nowhere near as bad as this United, which creates other pressures. Those pressures create the need for short-term compromises, which inhibit long-term work. It is just another negative cycle, that Ten Hag possibly never got out of.

On Sunday, Amorim badly needs to get out of this run, but Liverpool could somehow make it worse; maybe even worse than a 7-0. The United manager needs that spirit of defiance that has defined this fixture in the past. He needs history to work for him, to seize the present for the future.