Ruben Amorim 'given very short deadline' to turn things around at Man Utd or risk sacking

 Rio Ferdinand believes that Ruben Amorim has until Christmas to impress at Manchester United before the board assess his future. The Portuguese tactician has struggled since arriving at Old Trafford in November in the wake of Erik ten Hag's dismissal, failing to mould his inherited squad to suit his patented style of play.

As a result, the Red Devils finished 15th and failed to achieve any domestic or European silverware. Despite it coming as United's lowest-ever finish in the Premier League, it appears as though the board are willing to back the 40-year-old this summer and see how he performs with a full transfer window and pre-season to make adjustments.

But Ferdinand believes that Amorim has just half a season to start turning the tide and delivering results before his future is thrown into question. Speaking exclusively to Mirror Football this week about why Amorim hasn't been successful just yet, Ferdinand said: "I think the recruitment, he needs that time.

"He's had one player, [Patrick] Dorgu, that he's been able to recruit. So, it looks like [Matheus] Cunha’s come, and I think there's hopefully going to be one or two more in this window.

Then you can start judging him a little bit more. I don't think in his wildest dreams he thought he'd have finished 15th. None of us fans would have thought that either.

"So, that's been a huge disappointment in that sense. But I don't think you can fully judge everything he's done yet when he hasn't had a chance to bring in players. We're judging him based on someone else's players. And I think, yeah, get to Christmas and let's see how we're looking."

After Ten Hag spent big on the likes of Joshua Zirkzee, Matthijs de Ligt and Leny Yoro over the summer, Amorim had little room to work with in January. As a result United brought in just two players in the form of Dorgu from Lecce for £25.1million and Ayden Heaven from Arsenal in a deal reported to be worth a little more than £1m.

However, the Red Devils have hit the ground running in the early summer transfer window, signing Cunha from Wolves in a £62.5m deal as they look to bolster their strike force. They have also been linked with Viktor Gyokeres, Victor Osimhen and Bryan Mbeumo, although it is thought that the latter may follow Thomas Frank to Tottenham after his own departure from Brentford.

Numerous names have tried to replicate the glory days of Sir Alex Ferguson at United since his retirement in 2013, including David Moyes, Louis Van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, only to come up short. And Ferdinand also noted that there could be numerous reasons as to why the club hasn't won a Premier League title in over a decade.

He explained: "If I had the answer to that question, I'd be at Man Utd now sorting things out. But I don't think it's ever one reason. I don't think when you have failures in anything, in any walk of life, it's down to one single thing.

"I think there's a number of different things that you could point to for the demise of Manchester United and sustained lack of success. I think one of them being the recruitment will be high on the list of most people, saying that the recruitment's been wrong.

"For whatever reason, for various different reasons, identifying the wrong players technically, tactically, physically, mentally at times, that's been an issue. Were the managers right for the club at the respective times that they came? Maybe not, some of them.

"And I think the actual infrastructure of the football club behind the scenes has been probably something that you looked at and gone, actually, that could have been better. And there was a big change.

"Not many clubs lose their manager, the most successful manager they've ever had, and the CEO in the same window. But Man Utd had done that, and they had two people that were pivotal to the success. One was a lot more public and was understood to be the driver of the whole machine, which he was to a certain point.

"But every great manager, every great individual, there's always a sidekick somewhere, and David Gill was that for Sir Alex Ferguson. So, to lose two of them when United did was definitely a hammer blow, but never recovered since."

It comes as Ferdinand launched his Career Transfer Hub with Talking Futures, in a bid to connect teenagers with their parents in making choices and planning their futures. On the campaign, he said: "I think it's about empowering kind of families to talk more about education, especially parents.

"I think we're comfortable talking about a lot of things, i.e. football, a lot of the time in and around the front room or across the table with your kids, but getting that kind of common ground when you're talking about education, sometimes it's quite difficult, even I've found it difficult at times.

"So something like this is definitely a good way in and a good avenue in to kind of having those conversations about what's next in your life, education wise, where do you see yourself going? What paths are you looking at?

"And this is a great, I think, avenue for parents to really kind of touch the paper and go, right, listen, here we go, and start walking their kids down the right path, giving them a little bit of autonomy over it, but also guide them a little bit at the same time. So I wish I'd had this when I was younger - although I had football, which I was quite fortunate with."