If you are a Manchester United supporter, it must be hope that kills you. The hope for improvement. The hope for change. The hope for a new direction. So far, none of this has happened under Ruben Amorim.
Amorim, the new United manager, has said some impressive things and made some brave decisions, but it all pales quite a bit when compared to the continued ordinariness of his team's football. United looked like a very bad side when Amorim took control from Erik ten Hag ten games ago and they still look like a very bad side today.
United is less chaotic under the new Portuguese coach. They make fewer catastrophic individual mistakes. They don't turn the ball over as much in unforgiving areas.
But they still lack control and purpose. Yet they lack energy and entrepreneurial spirit. Yet they concede bad goals. In the meantime, is there even a United team that is less likely to score than this? It's hard to imagine one.
They scored 21 goals in the Premier League and a third of those – three at Southampton under Ten Hag and four at home to Everton under Amorim – came in just two of their 18 games.
Ten Hag had set the bar so low in the final days of his time at Old Trafford that it seemed as if any coach with reasonable qualifications would improve it quickly and significantly. This is not a United side capable of winning the Premier League, but given its proximity to this year's top division it has enough in it to threaten the top four places. After all, Nottingham Forest are third.
But they went no further under Amorim. Not an inch. Given the string of fixtures Amorim faced when he took over – Ipswich, Everton, Arsenal, Forest, Manchester City, Arsenal, Wolves – United should now be in the top six or seven.
That they are fourteenth ahead of Monday night's game at home to Newcastle is quite shocking and while it would be presumptuous to suggest Amorim is not the man for the long term, there are question marks over his work in the immediate aftermath of his appointment .
Every new coach arrives with risks. It's impossible to know without a doubt. Amorim, for example, arrived in his homeland alone after impressive performances, having worked exclusively in a league where one in three teams triumph almost without fail every season.
The Eredivisie is different. It is a demanding environment in which some very good coaches have taken the time to perform well.
Unai Emery was laughed out of Arsenal. Marco Silva had to gain educational experiences at Hull, Watford and Everton before finding his true voice at Fulham. Nuno Espirito Santo is in his third Premier League job at Forest, Eddie Howe at Newcastle his second. For all those who manage to get off to a flying start – Brentford's Thomas Frank and Brighton's Fabian Herzuler, for example – there are others who take longer. And that's not even considering the almost unique pressure and focus that comes with a job at Old Trafford.
Amorim was not United's first choice. When the club considered firing Ten Hag last summer, he was far from at the top of the list. By the time Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his gang made the move, there weren't many cards left on the table.
Amorim was still greeted as the savior. Of course he was. What is the alternative? To shrug your shoulders and expect the worst? He arrived feeling like an antidote to all of Ten Hag's charmless clumsiness and United needed some of that. He made a big call on Marcus Rashford and deserves credit because someone should do that at some point.
There have been some improvements in the likes of defenders Diogo Dalot and Noussair Mazraoui, while Amad Diallo has played with some welcome freedom and exuberance. And Amorim really needs time to see if he is the man who can take United forward, rather than a coach who has looked like a big fish in a small pool.
He needs time to improve cultures, ideas and playing styles. He needs time to identify and recruit his own players and train them into a formation that everyone knew he wouldn't change before he even arrived. If ever there was a club that needed to understand the value of long-term planning, it's this one.
At the same time, he just has to find some tasty results while doing this. Good coaches improve teams and players, no matter how poor they are.
They take small steps forward. When you look at a team, you see their work staring back at you. This is not the way things are going under Amorin at United at the moment and that is a surprise.
This is a United team that still has that awful blank look in their eyes. What is it? Where is it going? How does it improve? What happened to hope?
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