With his breezy manner, shock of jet black wavy hair and declaration that “we choose our way 100 per cent”, Ruben Amorim came across in his debut media conference in a crammed Jimmy Murphy Centre as the fresh energy Manchester United need. And with only three points to third place, there is a golden chance to transform the season.
Yet the issue Amorim wrestles with is the club he walks into and the players he inherited. The 39-year-old was enthusiastic about the “many meetings” that are ensconcing him at United, and firm on his “belief” in players he drills on the pitches besides where he spoke.
Robed in a club tracksuit with red front panels and blue arms, Amorim was as open under questioning as Erik ten Hag could be taciturn. Yet the Dutchman, David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer are all No 1s sucked into the black hole of the post-Alex Ferguson United.
It is a vortex that cannot be comprehended until experienced. The above quintet of Amorim predecessors can point to how the mismanagement they operated under at executive level caused the fatal corollary of muddled player recruitment.
So Amorim’s task is to work the oracle with a squad that apart from Bruno Fernandes, Kobbie Mainoo, Lisandro Martinez and Marcus Rashford (if he can rediscover consistency) is average.
Asked why he holds belief in a group that got Ten Hag the sack, Amorim said: “The only thing I ask: hard work and you have to believe in the new idea. And I felt that [so far]. Until they prove me wrong I believe in the players.”
As United’s new football chief Jim Ratcliffe was billed as the required boardroom reset. But after failing to axe Ten Hag last summer, a £200 million investment was greenlit on five footballers wanted by him – Manuel Ugarte, Leny Yoro, Matthijs de Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui, and Joshua Zirkzee – before a puzzling Ratcliffe U-turn finally removed the Dutchman last month.
So a reasonable view is that the minority owner and his chief executive, Omar Berrada, and sporting director, Dan Ashworth, have yet to show spectacular improvement on the previous power axis of Richard Arnold/John Murtough and Ed Woodward/Murtough. Amorim may well end as the latest man in the Old Trafford hot seat ejected by dodgy decisions from above.
For now he has a unit comprising 14 Ten Hag recruits that have to be weaved into his 3-4-3, along with Fernandes and Rashford, who predated his immediate predecessor, and whose maverick talents are vital yet tricky to fit into a cohesive unit.
Amorim presented the challenge this way: “I don’t know about repair but we have space to grow as a team. We have to improve in a lot of areas – the understanding of the game, I know it’s a different way of playing and we are changing in the middle of the season. We have to improve the physical aspect. And that’s it. I don’t know how long it will take, I know when you are in Manchester United you have to win games. So I will not tell you that I need a lot of time. It’s a great league, it’s the strongest league in the world and we have to improve a lot to try to win it. So what I can say is we have to win games to win time and then to win titles.”
This is what he is being paid the thick end of €10 million a year for. Ten Hag finished third in his opening season with, largely, the same group. But this was achieved with a misfiring attack that managed only 58 strikes and a goal difference of 15, the division’s sixth best.
The key then was Rashford’s 18 Premier League goals, so reviving a forward who packs pace, height, strength and verve is as high on Amorim’s list as fitting him and Fernandes into his unfamiliar shape.
Of this Amorim said: “It’s not revolution because football is not so different with five players, in the back, three players in the back or four players in the back. I cannot say evolution because we will have to wait and see but we will play a different type of football.
“We have our ideas, I’m not saying these are the best ideas, but it’s our way of seeing football. It’s not evolution or revolution, it’s a change in the way we play football. We lose the ball too often and we have to keep the ball. We have to be better running back. That is clear for everybody. And we have to be very good in the details, sometimes we are hoping to change a lot of things, big things.
“It’s the small things and we are here to improve on the small things, the way we see football, play as a team, understanding the game in one way, that is the focus. I can tell you in the small things I can help these players a lot.”
If the Portuguese, who also fielded questions from nine journalists who flew in specially from his homeland, is to achieve United’s Holy Grail of a 21st league championship he will have to.
A zesty charisma will be an aid. It was on display again when asked about his fellow Portuguese Mourinho. “I’m different. You looked at Mourinho and you felt he can win everywhere. He was European champion,” Amorim said. “I’m not European champion. I’m a different guy in a different moment. Football nowadays is different, and I am the right person at the moment. I am a young guy, I understand the players, so I try to use that to help my players.”
