The new coach has a laser focus on his one way to play football. What he is missing, however, is what getting back into the Champions League would mean financially to a club reusing tea bags and cutting lunches for staff – or the ones not being made redundant, anyway.
The £100m-plus that a Champions League return would bring is not a just an additional bonus. It is absolutely essential to boosting the transfer kitty, which is down to loose change at the moment.
United are not like rivals Manchester City, who regularly generate hundreds of millions from dispensable squad players. The players who will leave this summer will do so for nothing.
Perhaps Amorim was trying to take the pressure off his besieged strugglers prior to a trip to the Basque Country to face Real Sociedad.
Supporters frequenting the glorious cervecerías and tabernas around the stunning San Sebastian old town certainly had low expectations for the football itself, with many admitting they were making the most of what could well be their final European trip for a few years.
The build-up did feel low key, with Spanish sports newspaper Marca claiming it felt like Southampton were in northern Spain rather than the might of Manchester United, such was the lack of buzz ahead of a knockout European encounter.
In an area famed for the quality of its gastronomy, the first half inside the Anoeta Stadium served up a rather less appetising offering.
The hosts, who came into the encounter having lost three of their previous five matches in all competitions matched United for wayward passing and lack of imagination, with the only attack of note a blocked effort from Bruno Fernandes, with the rebound flicked just wide from Joshua Zirkzee.
United’s first-half impotence is a growing concern – that is now 20 games in all competitions without a first-half goal for Amorim’s side
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