The pressure is on Ruben Amorim after the winter window is closed without a significant incoming things in Manchester United.
It is hard to believe that Amorim really only wanted to bring in a 20-year-old left back and a child of the youth team of Arsenal-Even if he was clearly desperate to be shot from Marcus Rashford and Antony.
Financial issues, it seemed, the core of the lack of serious work of United on the market despite a miserable season so far.
Many United fans called on Amorim and Ineos to do more in the winter window.
But perhaps from the financial necessity, instead of a choice, he may have come across the same path that Liverpool and Arsenal returned to where they are now.
To do well, change takes time. It is about doing well, instead of acting, but to have to start a few months later.
The Old Trafford Faithful, looking for the 13th, may not praise what happened at Anfield and the Emirates when those two clubs brought their most important management changes for the past decade.
Yet the initial actions of both Jurgen Klopp and Mikel Arteta, where neither of them opted for a grand cull and makeover in terms of staff at the first chance, the example of Amorim may benefit from following.
What mattered, in Liverpool and Arsenal, was a cultural reset. A restart of attitude and mentality. Led from above, filtering all the way through the club.
Exactly what is needed at Old Trafford.
Klopp in particular inherited a mess when he replaced Brendan Rodgers in Anfield in October 2015.
His first side, in a scoreless draw at Spurs, included Martin Skrtel, Mamadou Sakha and Alberto Moreno at the back, Emre Can and Lucas Leiva in midfield and a bank with Jordan Ibe, Jerome Sinclair and Kolo Toure.
Klopp's first decision, his most important, was to change the mentality and approach of the players at his disposal instead of a wholesale circuit of staff.
Indeed, the only player signed by Liverpool in January 2016 was the Serbian midfielder Marko Grujic, who was immediately lent to Red Star Belgrade and whose Liverpool career only contributed 16 performances in three seasons.
Only when the summer window, then 16 players – including no less than six in that first competition day team in White Hart Lane – left and Joel Matip, Sadio Mane and Georginio Wijnaldum were among the arrivals, where the Klopp Player Makeover began seriously.
However, the real work had already started with the field, on the training field and in the mentality of the dressing room.
Klopp made a point of learning the names of all 80 employees on the Melwood basis of the club and introduced them to the players.
It was a signal of intention. A club. One goal. Together – from the most humble soil to the star striker. A binding has been created.
Similarly in Arsenal, Arteta, appointed just before Christmas 2019, he only brought on the Lening Market in his first window on the Lening Market.
Three in, with Emile Smith Rowe and defender Mavropanos who are leaving temporarily.
The most important team changes came afterwards. January -Pablo Mari and Cedric Soares had made their loans permanently, with Brazilian defender Gabriel, Thomas Pareny and Willian added.
Of crucial importance, the clearance was also lifted over the second and third windows, with Henrikh Mkhitarian, Mesut division and defenders Sokratis and Mustafi all the way in January 2021, quickly followed by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Indeed, in August 2022, less than three years after he arrived, only five of the players were on his first team -sheet – Bukayo Saka, Smith Rowe, Granit Xhaka, Gabriel Martinelli and Reiss Nelson – still in the building.
Just like Klopp, Arteta was determined to force, no matter how uncomfortable it was, an attitudinal change.
The Spaniard marked his fifth birthday at the helm and remembered: “The first thing was that I had everyone together, the staff and the players, and I told them what I thought about them and why this didn't work.
“If we continued like that, it would never work.”
He added: “We all had to come back together with the same agenda and with the same intentions.
“The basis must be really strong to create something.
“We had to create the right culture for our club, an environment in which, first of all, everyone must respect each other, that we work together and express the passion about how happy we are to be where we are.”
What both helped – unlike Amorim – was of course evidence on the field.
Klopp only lost one of his first 11 games at the helm, Arteta had one defeat in his first 14 games. It built a stronghold when it became more difficult.
Amorim, on the other hand, lost six from his first 11 after replacing Erik ten Hag.
And since then, successes have also been scarce for the offer and added to eight victories in 19 games, only four victories of the 13, plus seven losses, in the Prem.
Inconsistent team selection reached a different level when he chose to play Kobbie Mainoo as an effective false nine in Sunday against Palace's shock, so that both Joshua Zirkzee and Rasmus Hojlund were brought on the couch for 70 minutes.
The fact that only six of the team that started Amorim's first game on Ipswich was in the first side on Sunday that with that feeling of uncertainty.
The only important signature, Danish left back Patrick Dorgu, has now been thrown into a club that seems not certain about the next steps.
Amorim will want to believe that sending Rashford and Antony out the house, apparently forever, is an explanation for the entire team.
It must be. But now it's up to the manager. There is no room for apologies.
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