Ruben Amorim criticised individual players, branded the team historically bad, hit out at the academy, needlessly ostracised Kobbie Mainoo, finished 15th, threw a tantrum because he couldn’t sign Emiliano Martinez, lost to Grimsby, lost to everyone, generally sacrificed everything in the name of an unworkably rigid system and style, lost a final to actual Tottenham and, most unforgivably of all, questioned the omnipotence of Jason Wilcox.
But for all the damage he caused at Manchester United, nothing Amorim did was half as bad as the sackable offence that is Michael Carrick allowing the tiresome haircut grift to persist.
At least the Portuguese never even vaguely teased achieving that seemingly gargantuan feat of stitching together five consecutive wins of association football with a squad assembled at an absurd expense. The most Amorim ever mustered was three; Carrick surpassed that within 24 days of an appointment which can no longer ever be made permanent beyond the end of the season.
After dispatching Manchester City and Arsenal, overcoming Fulham and staring at the clown car crash that is Spurs while driving past at the wheel on his way to a fourth consecutive victory, Carrick has come unstuck at that least adhesive of obstacles: West Ham at the London Stadium.
That is unfair on Nuno Espirito Santo’s rapidly improving team, whose non-coincidental transformation since the arrival of Paco Jemez had another victory snatched away in the fifth minute of a slightly ridiculous stoppage time.
West Ham had defended a well-earned lead with relative ease, barely conceding a single chance of note after Tomas Soucek’s opener in the 50th minute.
Casemiro had a goal disallowed from an exceptional Mainoo cross for a marginal offside, but Manchester United were otherwise entirely familiarly bereft of inspiration against a low block.
Then mild carnage ensued as the hosts decided they might as well try and exploit some of the swathes of space left behind by an increasingly desperate team.
Callum Wilson led two breaks and should have scored from at least one. Adama Traore had a chance to end things on the counter. Joshua Zirkzee almost scored from a Bruno Fernandes cross. Benjamin Sesko very much did, expertly diverting a Bryan Mbeumo delivery into the only corner of the net Mads Hermansen would have been unable to reach in time.
It was a game played on West Ham’s terms, but also on the condition that Manchester United could introduce more than £100m worth of strikers from the bench to have the desired impact, because up to that point they had tried nothing and were all out of ideas.
That in itself is one of the more basic ticks against Carrick’s name: when chasing a result he shifted to three at the back, but only swapped one of his centre-halves – due to injury – and brought on two strikers, one for a full-back.
The worst performance he has ever overseen as a break-glass-and-phone-Fergie-in-case-of-emergency Manchester United manager still delivered a point.
The bar against which he is judged remains painfully low, but this was an entirely fine point away at a team which has discovered a blueprint more than capable of securing survival.
This West Ham side will not go down playing like this, especially while Nottingham Forest and Spurs display clear symptoms of post-Ange stress disorder by wedding themselves so inexorably to the Australian’s failing successors.
The Hammers, of all teams, will not subscribe to the Too Good To Go Down school of thought even with Jarrod Bowen, Mateus Fernandes and Crysencio Summerville in their ranks. But when they are in direct competition for positions with teams Too Bad To Stay Up, it is difficult to envisage a fall into the Championship.
Had they held on it would not have been undeserved, but Manchester United’s equaliser came on merit too.
As Carrick said, “the spirit again, the late goal when we needed it, it’s a great quality to have, so we’ll take the point and move on”.
He knows what he’s done. And we’ll literally never forgive him.
