Manchester United’s Europa League final is vital to the Ruben Amorim project, even he knows that

Welcome to the single most important game in Manchester United’s recent history. A bit like the one a fortnight ago, and the one a week before that too, and the couple last month. Except for real this time.

It has been difficult to spell out just how high the stakes are on each leg of this journey through the Europa League knockout stages while knowing that, all being well, there will be an even more seismic, significant, season-shaping occasion to come.

Yet now this final has arrived, there is no downplaying how important it is in the context of the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era, how critical it is to the club’s immediate future, and how one night will define the perception of an entire campaign.

Unless you are Ruben Amorim, that is. Amid weeks of talk about ‘Bilbao or bust’, the United head coach has at times felt like a lone dissenting voice, the only person in any way connected to Old Trafford looking beyond May 21. You might say the only one of us able to see the wood for the trees.

“Everybody is thinking about the final. The final is not the issue in this moment in our club,” he said after the 2-0 defeat by West Ham United — the 17th defeat of a dismal domestic campaign, before the 18th followed on Friday at Stamford Bridge.

“We have bigger, bigger things to think (about) and we have to change a lot of things in the end of the season.”

That has, by and large, been the message for months. Amorim first said winning the Europa League could not save United’s season before their last-16 tie with Real Sociedad, then reiterated it ahead of the semi-finals, even after witnessing that galvanising comeback against Lyon.

He has never denied the transformative effect winning Wednesday’s final will have on the summer transfer window and next season. “The Champions League can change everything,” he said last month.

But Amorim has consistently characterised a return to the Champions League as a double-edged sword, too much too soon for the squad currently at his disposal, who could benefit from a season without European football and more time on the training ground.

A miserable run of two points from a possible 24 in the Premier League has only convinced him that asking his players to fight competitively on two fronts is “the moon”.

“We need more time with the team,” he reiterated last week. “We need to arrange a lot of things in Carrington — we need more time to not think game by game by game.”

A season spent out of Europe can be beneficial. Among the Premier League’s so-called ‘Big Six’, Liverpool’s most recent season without European football brought an immediate return to the Champions League. A year later they were in the final. A year after that, they won it.

Chelsea benefited from free midweeks during that same 2016-17 campaign on the way to winning the Premier League title.

It is no guarantee, though. Arsenal fell short of Champions League qualification in 2021-22 despite spending much of the campaign in the top four. More training time did not help Ange Postecoglou and Mauricio Pochettino guide Tottenham or Chelsea respectively to a top-four finish last term either.

All those clubs improved on their previous season’s league position, though, and Amorim knows — Champions League or not — there can be no repeat of United’s desperate league form next season.

“If we start like this, if the feeling is still here, we should give space to different persons,” he said after the West Ham defeat, bringing his own future into doubt. It was not the first time that he has entertained such notions in public.

Amorim later clarified those comments, insisting that he is “far from quitting” and that he was only referring to the possibility of the sack rather than any prospect of him walking away.

On that count, there has been no indication that Amorim is at risk, nor any reason to believe that he will not be in charge at the start of next season. Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s unreserved public support in his round of interviews two months ago was significant in that regard.

At the same time, Ratcliffe has shown himself to be unpredictable, in a hurry, and ultimately influential in matters of such magnitude.

Despite claiming in October that any decision to change manager would not be “my call”, he has since discussed Erik ten Hag’s dismissal in terms of a collective decision between him, chief executive Omar Berrada and technical director Jason Wilcox.

The departure of the other key figure in that process — sporting director Dan Ashworth — serves as a reminder of how fast fresh appointments can fall out of favour.

That is why, for all the talk of free midweeks or gradual rebuilds, winning on Wednesday night is vital for the Amorim project. More than anything, it would help preserve arguably his most valuable asset: the perception that, given time, he is capable of turning things around.

Every manager must inspire a sense of progress — one of perpetual, forward momentum however fragile or gradual it may be — and if results are bad, they must encourage confidence that they will get better.

Amorim has benefited from exactly this so far, in and outside of Old Trafford. He has the public backing of his superiors. His name is sung by supporters week in, week out (to the tune of “It’s a Heartache” by Bonnie Tyler). Even David Beckham wants to see him backed, despite the very real possibility that United could finish this season fourth from bottom this coming Sunday.

Win in Bilbao and that sense of optimism will survive the most miserable of domestic starts to a managerial tenure in United’s modern history. Lose and it cannot help but be at least somewhat damaged, as Amorim himself has acknowledged.

“It’s going to be really bad (if we lose the final),” he admitted last week. “The patience of the fans and you guys if we don’t win it, next year is going to be at the limit, and we’ll have to be perfect to continue everything.”

Whatever the result on Wednesday, INEOS’s second season at Old Trafford will end in similar fashion to the first: with a manager who led United to their lowest Premier League finish still in place, who has much to prove and a mess to wade through. Victory in Bilbao will not change that. No single win would.

But the path forward will be that little bit clearer, a few more inches away from the cliff face. As Amorim has reminded everyone throughout this European run, making United competitive at the highest level again is no easy task. But winning the Europa League will help — and he needs all the help he can get.

(Photo: Matt McNulty/Getty Images)

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