Ruben Amorim breezed into the press-conference room at Carrington with a cheery ‘Hi guys’ yesterday and smiled as he sat down to face the media.
Gone was the bedraggled, tortured soul we saw in Cleethorpes on Wednesday night, tinkering with his magnets like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, and making dark mutterings after Manchester United had been ritually humiliated by Grimsby Town in the Carabao Cup.
Amorim was refreshed and ready for the inevitable questions about his future after he hinted strongly at Blundell Park that talks were needed to discuss the early-season crisis at Old Trafford once today’s clash with Burnley is out of the way.
The United manager’s strategy soon became clear: ignore me, it was heat-of-the-moment stuff that I’ve said before and I’ll say again, thank you very much. It’s what I do and I’m not going to change. Now everybody move on.
The man who is not for turning when it comes to United playing his 3-4-2-1 formation is equally inflexible on how he will go about the job, it seems. ‘To be really honest with you guys, I’m going to be like that, so prepare yourselves,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I want to quit, sometimes I want to be here for 20 years. Sometimes I hate my players, sometimes I love my players. I need to improve on that. It’s going to be hard.
‘Sometimes I am so frustrated with the team that I think one thing and then I return to my normal behaviour. So I will not promise you anything. I will live this day by day.
Ruben Amorim no longer appeared the bedraggled, tortured soul seen in Grimsby
Manchester United were ritually humiliated in the Carabao Cup, leaving Amorim muttering
The head coach was refreshed and ready for the inevitable questions about his future
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‘I just need 10 minutes with myself alone. When you say, “I want to quit”, it’s that, “F***, I want to quit, I don’t love my players”. I sometimes hate my kids. I’m going to be like that. It’s not going to change.
‘In that moment (after the Grimsby loss), I was so frustrated and annoyed. I know that you have a lot of experienced people talking about the way I should perform with the media, to be more constant, to be more calm. This is my way of doing things.
‘Sometimes it’s a good thing, sometimes it’s a funny thing. I’m going to suffer. We just need to win some games and then things will be easier to do.’
It is not the first time Amorim has discussed his heart-on-sleeve approach in the 10 months he has been United’s head coach. It has been a turbulent period marked by poor results and a number of startling admissions by the Portuguese that included warning (accurately as it turned out) that a ‘storm was coming’, his team were possibly the worst in United’s history (right again), and he would walk away without compensation if he isn’t the right man for the job.
On the pre-season tour in Chicago this summer, the 40-year-old spoke to us about his ‘romantic’ side and tendency to act impulsively. He offered to quit early in his coaching career at Casa Pia and again at Sporting Lisbon in 2023.
Sources have denied that Amorim did the same at United in January, but admit that he was in need of reassurances from the club during a particularly difficult time.
The United boss, who is set to hold talks with the club’s hierarchy during the international break, also admitted he does not know if he will be in charge after that. ‘I don’t know what is going to happen. That is my idea but I’m not going to promise you what the future will be. But I am the manager of United and I think that is not going to change.’
His honesty is refreshing from a media perspective, but it begs the question: do United need a coach creating so much drama? After all, isn’t this club enough of a circus already without the man in charge taking on the role of ringmaster?
Amorim admitted he does not know whether he will be in charge after the international break
His honesty is refreshing from a media perspective but the club are enough of a circus already
Sir Alex Ferguson saw press conferences as an opportunity to send a message to his players or adversaries, and was an expert at dropping in the right words at the right time.
To Ferguson, it was gladiatorial combat with the media and he always heeded the advice of one TV executive to rub his face before appearing in front of the cameras so he appeared alert and ready to commence battle.
You rarely got anything out of Ferguson that he did not want to give.
It is equally hard to imagine Jose Mourinho, another master of the spoken word, or Louis van Gaal laying their emotions quite as bare as Amorim has done during his time as United boss, any more than you could picture them cowering in the dug-out at Blundell Park afraid to watch the shootout.
United insiders have said they would be more concerned if Amorim was happy about having his pants pulled down on a wet Wednesday night in Grimsby, or a Premier League record that currently reads seven wins from 29 games.
But there is so much riding on his appointment working out for Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the team of executives he has put in charge that it is bound to be disconcerting when the head coach displays signs of being emotionally incontinent.
Since United left Cleethorpes in disgrace late on Wednesday, two of the club’s former managers have lost their jobs.
Mourinho was sacked after 14 months at Fenerbahce and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer went at neighbouring Besiktas after less than eight months. It is a reminder of just how ruthless this business is. The roof can cave in very suddenly, and nowhere more so than at Old Trafford. United have made it clear that they are backing Amorim, but this isn’t simply a case of a club holding their nerve with an underperforming manager.
Sir Alex Ferguson saw United press conferences as an opportunity to send a message to his players or adversaries. To him, it was gladiatorial combat with the media
There is so much riding on his appointment working out for Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his executives
Ratcliffe and Ineos are trying to create a new culture at the club, an ethos, with Amorim at its core. They have cast aside some of United’s most exciting young players for him in Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho. They have spent more than £200million on signings this summer to fit a system that requires two No 10s over traditional wingers.
Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo have played relatively well, but thus far their most significant impact has been to miss penalties in the shootout at Grimsby and force Bruno Fernandes into a deeper midfield role that does not suit United’s captain and best player. The less said about Benjamin Sesko’s performances the better.
To say Ratcliffe and his people are invested in Amorim would be a huge understatement, and nobody who experienced the feelgood factor on tour this summer could have predicted a full-blown crisis this early in the season. ‘Football is funny because we had a great pre-season,’ he said yesterday. ‘I was shocked in the last game. You can see a team that in one week looks like a different club.’
The challenge for Amorim is to show that he is still the man to lead United forward into a bright future and not allow the club to be dragged backwards after all the pre-season optimism evaporated at Grimsby.
‘I feel the players are always thinking about the past,’ he added. ‘They think there is something in the water here or in the food. It’s in our minds.
‘In the last game, we had some moments that I had the feeling that when it’s tough, everyone is trying to do his own thing. We dropped a level and now we have to respond. It’s not about the result, it is the way we play.
‘We just need to think about the next game. Let’s try to win the first game in the Premier League. We just need to win for confidence.’
After losing to Arsenal and drawing with Fulham, Burnley at Old Trafford should be straightforward enough – but how many times have we said that about United and been wrong? A measure of any struggling team is that no game looks easy.
Bryan Mbeumo has played relatively well but he missed the decisive penalty against Grimsby
Amorim desperately needs a win to take into the international break before his showdown talks
Once again, the mind drifted back to our conversation in Chicago and an astonishingly frank admission from Amorim that he went to games last season dreading the outcome because his team were not good enough. He and United cannot afford to regress after such an encouraging close season.
Amorim desperately needs a win to take into the international break so he can have those discussions with his employers without an axe hovering over his head.
He knows the two games after Burnley are against Manchester City and Chelsea. So is he still that man? Does he still have confidence in his ability to guide United out of the dark?
‘It depends on the day!’ he replied, barely stifling a laugh and still unable to keep his inner thoughts to himself. ‘Yes, I am always confident in the way I manage the team.’
