It's not too late to save their season ... but Red Devils need to make big changes

FOURTEENTH in the Premier League, out of the League Cup and with three upcoming fixtures against top-five teams, Manchester United's domestic season could effectively be over in January.

- SAMUEL LUCKHURST

The worst-case scenario is defeats to Newcastle and Liverpool leave them teetering above the relegation zone and their FA Cup defence ends after 90 minutes at Arsenal.

Manager Ruben Amorim said last month it would be fair to judge him definitively after two years.

He has not been in post for two months and the prospect of his sacking was raised in the press room at Molineux on Boxing Day.

Amorim is complicit in the mess but it is on Ineos.

As long as United are stuck in their rut, it can be traced back to the illogical decision not to change manager in the summer.

It is reasonable to question why the hierarchy replaced Erik ten Hag with a coach who operates in a system that jars with the United players. Or rather, that the players jar with.

Whatever the formation, no United side should perform as limply as they did at Wolves.

Amorim, at 39, is dynamic, charismatic and intense, the modern profile of coach that United needed. He was considered to replace Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool and Pep Guardiola at City.

Any attempt to pin the club's decline on a coach who touched down in Manchester on November 11 is nonsensical.

He is sussing players every week. Marcus Rashford, Joshua Zirkzee, Tyrell Malacia, Antony, Jonny Evans and Christian Eriksen have been omitted from matchday squads.

None ΟΙ them should be at United next season.

Pre-season cannot come soon enough for Amorim but United are not even midway through this campaign.

They are losing with such frequency it gives the illusion it is a write-off. It is not. It is still salvageable.

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