Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim is not happy with his current team. AFP Photo

Paul Kennedy

In days gone by, when Sir Alex Ferguson was in charge at Manchester United, he made the mentality: us against them.

After suffering a defeat, his post-match comments would often be along the lines of: “We were robbed”, “The best team lost", or “The referee was awful”.

On the rare occasions when United were well and truly beaten, Sir Alex tended to make a claim so outrageous that all the attention and headlines would be about him, and not the fact his team were below par.

I’ve no doubt that once the dressing room door was firmly closed, the fiery Scot would let his underperforming players have it with both barrels.

The hairdryer treatment, as it was known.

Last week, current manager Ruben Amorim described his team as “the worst, maybe, in the history of Manchester United” after they lost to Brighton, their sixth home defeat in 12 Premier League games.

That’s their poorest record in 131 years.

Now I’m sure many Manchester United fans will agree with the Portuguese manager that the team probably is the, or certainly one, of the worst teams in their history.

But there’s no way on Earth the manager should be saying so in a public forum.

If the players were down after the defeat, imagine how they must have felt hearing their boss slag them off for all the world to hear?

I’ve no idea how Amorim will be able to lift his players in the future after saying what he did.

It was also reported that during a furious rant in the dressing room, the manager broke a television screen.

In the Premier League, their next five opponents are Fulham, Crystal Palace, Tottenham, Everton and Ipswich.

On paper, they should win all of those games, but this team? Who knows?

They are currently 13th in the table, 10 points above the drop zone.

I really don’t think there is any danger of relegation, but it’s clear the manager needs to get his act together and start winning, especially the games they should be winning.

Cracks have been appearing at Manchester United for a long time, and now they are getting bigger. And I’m not talking about the ones on the 65 inch LED screen inside the dressing room at Old Trafford. VNS