Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion- I don’t understand how any manager should be guaranteed their job despite terrible on the job performance for >6 months, even if they came mid season…Especially in a multi-billion dollar football club. No other top club, or non-football corporation for that matter, tolerates mediocrity like we do.
If he stays into next season there is >80% chance he is sacked before December, and it’ll be yet another season to write off.
The reason I don't believe it's fair to judge Amorim this season is that we haven't given him any chance of being successful.
1) Amorim told us he didn't want to join mid-season because his style would take time on the training pitch to implement and it would be impossible to do that playing two games a week, every week. Other managers have all said working on things in training mid-season is virtually impossible given the current schedule, it's not something Amorim has made up, and he said it from the outset i.e. it's not aftertiming.
2) The club allowed Rashford and Anthony to leave on loan in January. We all agreed with these decisions at the time. Had you done a poll, I believe 90%+ would have backed these decisions. However, we also all knew this would leave us extremely short in attack. We can debate how good (or not) Anthony and Rashford are, but both are experienced international footballers, around their peak in terms of age / experience and are doing well for other clubs in top European leagues. We would absolutely 100% have done better had we kept them - but what would that have done for the long term vision of the club? The consensus was they needed to go for various reasons (salaries, shop window, squad morale etc...), and so we took a decision that would harm us short term for long term gain. Unfair to do that then judge Amorim before he gets to realise at least part of the "gain".
3) After letting Anthony and Rashford leave, Amad and Mainoo got injured. Add the Mount and Zirkee injuries and we have basically had a choice of Hojlund, Hojlund, Hojlund...or a 17 year old at CF. Consider then the only other attacker we have regularly had at our disposal is 20 year old Alejandro Garnacho, and is it any wonder at all that we can't score goals? Is it fair to blame that on the manager, his system or his coaching abilities? Or do we just acknowledge that he's desperately short of quality and experience in attack and give him a fair crack of the whip with a couple of proper forwards?
4) Amorim did not build this squad. We can go around and around talking about how good these players are (or not) and how good (or not) EtH was as a coach / tactician but the fact remains - this squad is horribly, horribly equipped to play modern, attacking football in the Premier League. Most clubs realised some time ago that technical ability now comes secondary to athletic ability in most scenarios. Our squad badly lacks pace, height, power, aggression and dynamism. This completely nullifies anything Amorim might want to do tactically with the squad. You can talk all you like about systems, but the only systems this squad would really excel in are low-block counter-attacking systems. If you want to argue we should go down that route then fine, but I don't believe it's the correct approach long term personally.
5) The age profile of our squad is badly off. Again, can go around the houses debating the relative qualities of our squad members, but the fact remains we have a ridiculously young side. What other side in a top European league fields 5 or 6 u21s on a regular basis? Not subs them on when winning, not sticks a young player or two at full back - genuine teenagers starting in key positions like CB, CM and CF all over the pitch. That approach is completely incompatible with expecting any kind of run of decent results at all.
6) The club desperately needed reinforcements in January but decided to wait until Summer when prices are more reasonable and to buy time to do our due-diligence. Again, we all agreed with this strategy at the time. It would be massively unfair to say to Amorim "hang tight until Summer, we will go into the market then", knowing we are short - and then judge him on the period in the interim when his options are sparse.
TL
R - our squad has completely the wrong profile to be successful in the PL (in terms of age and physical attributes) and this is not on Amorim. Decisions were taken knowing we would experience short term pain with the hope of long term gain. Also not on Amorim, and essentially knowingly handicapping him.
Now, on a side-note, you ask a question about whether we can or should judge him? Well the answer to that is, of course. I am judging and assessing him all the time. How he speaks and what he says. His in-game management. His squad selection. His interviews and handling of the press. His man-management. His coaching ability, insofar as can I see changes in our style or improvements in our shape. The general morale and attitude of the group. His understanding of what he has and what he does not have. How we do in games versus "big" opponents.
In all of the above, I have been very happy and encouraged by what I have seen, and therefore am totally and completely happy to allow him input on Summer transfers and to show us what he can do next season.
What I will not judge him on is the results, barring the type of catastrophic results, I mentioned as being so unlikely as not worth considering (i.e. losing every single game). For reasons I highlighted above 1-6.
