Laurie Whitwell was on Talk of the Devils saying that they had discussed appointing Amorim in the summer but because of a combination of his release clause being higher in the summer and them being a bit uncertain about Amorim, decided not to go for him.
If you wanted to give Ineos the benefit of the doubt, I'd say that because of the uncertainty around the Ashworth gardening leave situation, they were/are treating this season as 'Year 0'. Essentially, that Ashworth will come in this season and build the recruitment, sports science, medical etc. departments over the season and then have the targets for next summer lined and ready to go for the new manager to come in and hit the ground running. Keeping Ten Hag then allows them to keep a bit of stability while Ashworth rebuilds the club. Plus, gives them another year to assess the managers, like Amorim, Hoeness, McKenna, Marco Silva, De Zerbi etc. i.e., managers they clearly like but are unsure if they are good enough to be United managers. Also gives Ten Hag room to show that last season was because of injuries and he can fix the problems and turn it around.
But I think because we've started the season so badly, and because Sporting have started the season so well (9 wins out of 9 in the league with 30 scored and 2 conceded, 7 points out of a possible 9 in the Champions League), it's essentially made up their mind on both Amorim and Ten Hag - Whitwell alluded to this (the Amorim part) on the pod. Also said that the Amorim pursuit was led by Berrada.
Seems to me the whole summer situation with the manager stems from the Ashworth gardening leave fiasco with Newcastle. Have to wonder if Ineos might have been better off just going for a different Director of Football once it became clear Newcastle were going to be difficult. Might have saved them 14 games worth of trouble.
Now you'd have to hope both Amorim and Ashworth are worth the wait.
