Chaos meets continuity as Amorim makes it to Anfield

United's head coach Ruben Amorim will be wondering what might have been as his failing side take on a flying Liverpool

- RICHARD JOLLY

Jurgen Klopp dropped his bombshell, he later revealed, in November 2023. In January 2024, he went public. Liverpool's search for a manager could begin; not publicly, given their preference for doing their business as quietly as possible, but at least with one layer of secrecy removed.

They were soon informed that Xabi Alonso was minded to stay at Bayer Leverkusen for another year. To many in the wider world, Sporting CP’s Ruben Amorim assumed a status as the frontrunner after that. Not so, Liverpool would say; he was merely one of several they looked into. There was no preferred choice, they insist, until they alighted on Feyenoord’s Arne Slot. But he seemed to emerge from the shadows. The high-profile nature of the Portuguese’s candidacy contrasted with the lowkey approach adopted by Slot. He got the job by stealth, almost without warning.

Five months after he might have done, Amorim will make it to Anfield on Sunday; but in charge of Manchester United. A meeting of managerial opposites has given them very different experiences in charge of England’s two biggest clubs. Slot has had the smoothest of starts at Liverpool, Amorim the rockiest of beginnings at United. Slot has taken his team to the top of the Premier League and Champions League tables. Amorim has warned his new employers are at risk of dropping into the Championship. “This club needs a shock,” he said on Monday.

Which it is getting. United lost six times in December, their most defeats in a month since 1930. Amorim has become their first manager – or head coach, the title afforded to both him and Slot – to lose six of his first 11 games at the helm since Walter Crickmer in the 1930s. Slot has only been beaten once in half a season.