Looking at the Ruben Amorim to Manchester United managerial move and what it means from a Liverpool fan perspective…
GET ready for even more Manchester United.
Everyone’s favourite social experiment. A nostalgic guilty pleasure about to go into overdrive.
Ruben Amorim, currently the biggest flirt in European football, is about to start a new episode of this sycophantic, obsessed Succession drama.
Recent history suggests it’s likely to be more ‘Shit Show at the Fuck Factory’ than ‘Church and State’.
We don’t care, I get it. This is a Liverpool space. Football should be talking more about what Arne Slot is achieving, as it truly is phenomenal.
They should want to know more about how one of the most charismatic and influential figures in modern football was replaced without any real upheaval. Organisational competence isn’t box office, though.
Instead, we’re left gawping at Manchester’s most haggard institute. United currently resembles other legacy brands which have been left to stagnate from the inside.
They can be grouped with the likes of Boeing and the BBC as bodies which have failed to evolve and modernise as their identity and reputation rust.
But we love nothing more than pondering them. We have to engage in televised focus groups, endure former players and speculate to the level of shite being spoken in bloated boardrooms by glorified poindexters like Jason Wilcox and Dan Ashworth.
There is an obsession with making United what, exactly? What does Roy Keane really mean when he utters the shrill of ‘this is Man United, here’?
They have a brand nobody seems to know what to do with. Everyone must have a say. Nobody is ever missing.
This is a country which loves tradition. It props up an antiquated monarchy and will forever do so. It pines for some version of itself it never actually was. Somewhere, according to many, United have become part of that cabal.
They are seen as an entity which must succeed to give an impression we, as a country, are doing well. We simply need to maintain the facade of having it together.
So where does Liverpool enter the conversation? The likes of Manchester City and, to a degree, Arsenal remain on the outside looking in of this entire debacle – despite both being of huge relevance to the current landscape of English football.
But with open eyes, it’s United and Liverpool. It has always been.
United and Liverpool are what sells. There is no doubt that we would have had the same spotlight if technology allowed during the past three decades when we were distinctly average.
Recency bias is vital. You can’t rely on reputation alone. You can’t win the Champions League and close the club shop the next day.
United were so current, so villainous and overwhelming. Those days keep disappearing into the distance. They were New Labour, Sharleen Spiteri and Frasier.
Liverpool has recreated a sense of story, of efficiency and lure. It has ignited the romantic arc of its personality while modernising everything from stadium to social media output.
I would love them to brand more locally, be better neighbours to Anfield’s community. It still falters with ticketing, but I can see a world where all of these things improve.
Commercial revenues don’t win football games, but if the club is competent on and off the pitch it has a better chance of moving in a straight line. These are fragile entities.
It was notable when we were in the US this summer just how much of the club was in America. It felt the majority of Liverpool FC’s operation, including the Foundation, was present.
Liverpool have committed to taking these things and themselves seriously. They did so when – around a year ago – Jürgen Klopp first disclosed he would leave at the end of the season.
They went about things their way. Gary Neville has been allowed to lie on national television about Slot being Liverpool’s third-choice head coach. But Liverpool had just steamrolled United 3-0 at Old Trafford and we get to tell them they are not serious people once again.
Slot and Liverpool went to Arsenal and dug out a point to ensure their tremendous start to the season continued. United sacked a manager eight months too late after pissing about against a poor West Ham.
Slot and Liverpool – much changed – won at Brighton in a manner which gave a nod to careful squad building and wise investment.
Ruud van Nistelrooy got dressed up for the night and played adult to an adoring press against Leicester at home.
A bearded, handsome Portuguese has batted his lashes around the bar once again and Manchester United, old and so desperate for attention, have absolutely jumped at the chance for something real.
Liverpool need to remain focused on the serious business they are part of. Somewhere else, the next instalment of succession will be overblown, obsessive and generally unnecessary.
One thing is certain: you will have no choice but to endure it.
Buy Dan Morgan’s book ‘Jürgen Said To Me’ on Klopp, Liverpool and the remaking of a city…
