A report has revealed just how close Roberto De Zerbi came to being named Manchester United boss and how Ruben Amorim wasn’t on the Red Devils’ initial six-man shortlist.
Amorim is slowly starting to turn things around at Old Trafford, winning three Premier League games on the bounce to lift them above Liverpool and into sixth place in the table, having been on the verge of the sack for the majority of his Old Trafford career to that point having been appointed last November.
He became the club’s priority candidate after Erik ten Hag’s poor start to last season, after the Dutchman was handed a contract extension on the back of winning the FA Cup.
Co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has since admitted it was a mistake to retain Ten Hag, and a report from The Athletic has detailed the process in that summer when he signed a new deal which saw the Man Utd chiefs scour the managerial market to identify a replacement, which very nearly saw De Zerbi take the reins at Old Trafford.
It’s claimed their analysis of candidates at the time was focused on them ‘playing an attacking 4-3-3 system’ similar to the one used by Ten Hag, and there was ‘an emphasis on previous Premier League experience’.
It led them to draw up a six-man shortlist featuring Thomas Tuchel, Mauricio Pochettino, Roberto De Zerbi, Thomas Frank, Marco Silva and Graham Potter.
‘Informal contact was made with all of them’ but Tuchel and De Zerbi were ‘the prime candidates’, with Amorim not considered owing to his tactical system and lack of Premier League experience.
It’s claimed ‘his name kept coming up in conversations though’ along with Thiago Motta when Director of Football Jason Wilcox ‘talked to his contacts to sound out who was considered football’s next great coach’.
Man Utd ‘leaned towards Tuchel and De Zerbi’ and the report details why neither ended up in charge:
‘Tuchel came to Monaco for a meeting with United’s leaders two weeks after the FA Cup final, in which Ten Hag’s side outsmarted and defeated Manchester City for a momentous win. Tuchel came across incredibly well, but no terms were agreed and the German wasn’t ready for the United job. He was to take a short break from football after a difficult time at Bayern Munich that led to him leaving that club only the previous month.
‘So De Zerbi became the frontrunner, and financial terms were discussed with the Italian in line with what United felt was fair. Those terms were rejected, and the club chose not to improve them.’
In the end, Man Utd stuck with Ten Hag having failed to agree terms with a manager they deemed suitable to take over at the time, before ripping up their blueprint following his poor start to the campaign and plumping for a man with no Premier League experience, who plays a completely different formation in Amorim.