Man Utd must ignore Jamie Carragher and Wayne Rooney in making Ruben Amorim sack decision

When discussing the job being done by Ruben Amorim,Wayne Rooney had to sheepishly admit he was not exactly coming from a position of strength. He had no choice, really.

“I’ve tried my hand at management and it didn’t work out too well, so I get it,” said the former Derby County, DC United, Birmingham City and Plymouth Argyle manager. Didn’t work out too well?

Wayne has got that spot-on. In his 178 matches as a manager, Rooney has recorded only 45 victories. That is a win percentage of 25.3. Even in his difficult 11 months at Old Trafford, Amorim’s win percentage is 36.73. Across his 308-game managerial career, it is 65.91.

Of course, just because Rooney has proven to be an unsuccessful manager should not make his criticism of Amorim’s regime invalid. It might undermine his opinion but the suggestion from Rooney that Amorim’s tenure looks doomed is not an uncommon one.

Rooney’s fellow scouser, Jamie Carragher, has waded in. He said: “You don’t want to see anyone lose their job but it is better for everybody if they shake hands and move on.”

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Well, for starters, there is no guarantee it will be better for everybody if Amorim leaves. And more significantly, we are only SIX games into the Premier League season.

Manchester United have seven points from those six games - nothing to write home about but one more than Newcastle United and Aston Villa have accrued, one fewer than Chelsea’s total and three fewer than Manchester City have on the board.

They have been inconsistent across those half a dozen matches, for sure, and their defending in the defeat at Brentford was abysmal. But while the only statistic that really matters is the number in the points column, there are figures that hint at a positive direction at the start of Amorim’s first full season in charge.

United are top of the expected goals chart and have had more attempts on goal - they average just under 16 per fixture - than any other Premier League team. Sure, these figures would appear to confirm the veracity of the old line about lies, damned lies and statistics, but perhaps United have not been as bad as most pundits say.

The many who believe Amorim should be sacked before he has reached the anniversary of his appointment point to his overall body of work rather than the first half-dozen Premier League games of this season. And, true, 34 points from 33 Premier League games is relegation form.

But Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his football operation have seemingly decided that this season - the one for which he could prepare properly - would essentially be the real start of Amorim’s project. And they should not judge a real start after only six Premier League matches.

The three marquee summer signings - Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko - will take time to settle into a rhythm. That is normal.

And it is going to take more than one transfer window - and the acquisition of at least one high-quality central midfielder - to sort out the deep-rooted squad problems at Old Trafford. No, this is not good enough from Manchester United and Amorim has an awful lot to prove.

But while there are already a lot of things Ratcliffe and his chosen ones have got wrong since buying into United early last year, giving Amorim plenty of time to get things right is not one of them. They are right to keep the faith.

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