12 Jan 2026 13:51:21
Oh, come on. Amorim's been angling for a way out since last season. It has to have been incredibly frustrating for him to leave a title winning team in a minor league to come to OT and find that the players and mangers in the EPL are way better and could easily exploit the holes his system left, particularly with the limited squad he had at his disposal. I think the problem was that he himself had far less confidence in his much vaunted system and that's why he engineered his own demise. Let's face it everybody could see that, having invested well in the forwards and goalkeeper, we still needed a major refurbishment in midfield. So, he had an excuse. He could have played for results for the rest of this season, maybe got into Europe and the club would have spent to fill those serious deficiencies. But, no, he decided to throw his toys out the pram. That's the action of someone who, despite all the protestations to the contrary, doesn't really believe in himself.
Yes, there has been some improvement since last season at least in the attack, but it's been made up for by an event worse defensive record. His results have been abysmal. My guess is ETH would have done better last season, and he would quite possibly have put a side out to beat Spurs in the Europa final (if he'd got us there) . I actually liked Amorim. He had a chance to make a name for himself as the coach of one f the most famous clubs in world football. but he bottled it.
One wonders if we hadn't lost players to Afcon and we had won those drawn games against bottom clubs, whether all of this would have gone down in the same way.
12 Jan 2026 14:31:17
Your interpretation of this appears to me to be wildly wide of the mark. My reading - which could also be very far off - is that they decided to replace RA several weeks ago, but to do so in the summer. That then led to a change of approach towards the winter transfer window, and that RA would not get reinforcements to ensure better balance to the team - as we because limited owing to how bad our left side has been. This created tension, and this was compounded by then being told he needed to play a different formation. Wilcox also addressing the squad to tell them they were underperforming was another straw. Amorim was too emotional but I put very little of this whole debacle on him.
Wilcox, Berrada and Ratcliffe should have shown more patience and backed the manager. Amorim had a paper thin squad and when multiple players from the 7 or 8 good players he has were missing then things didn't look good, but when he had those players available we looked like a really really good side. The posters on here that are suggesting otherwise are talking crap. Numerous metrics demonstrated this improvement.
12 Jan 2026 15:22:21
One also wonders if Wilcox hadn't interfered as he has admitted to and supplied Amorim with a midfield without moving the goal posts after engaging him if Amorim would have reacted as he did.
It's all conjecture. All very bizarre.