Ruben Amorim was left ‘furious’ with one unnamed Man Utd player against Everton, before taking time out to issue Amad instructions during the Arsenal loss.
At least in terms of performances and results, Amorim has endured an indifferent start to his reign as Man Utd manager.
A draw with Ipswich has been followed by wins over Bodo/Glimt and Everton, as well as defeats to Arsenal and Nottingham Forest, leaving Man Utd 13th in the Premier League table and between Ferencvaros and Viktoria Plzen in the Europa League equivalent.
A month on from his appointment, the changes overseen since replacing Erik ten Hag are clear and have been laid out in a report by ESPN.
Amorim has, for example, decided to hold ‘extended sessions on the full-size pitch in the academy hall,’ which his predecessor tended to use for warm-ups.
As a result of the packed fixture schedule Amorim has worked there extensively, with ‘tactical walk-throughs focused on player positioning during different phases of the game’ his main objective.
The Portuguese also does not hold many individual meetings with players as he wishes to foster a wider team environment, which explains his stance on the Noussair Mazraoui LGBTQ+ controversy.
Man Utd decided to scrap their usual Rainbow Laces campaign plans which have previously seen them wear a pride-themed tracksuit for walk-outs before games, as Mazraoui ‘refused’ to take part on religious grounds.
It was not a universally popular decision in the dressing room but Amorim called it “a group decision as players, as it should be”.
Therein lies another difference in comparison to Ten Hag: chief executive Omar Berrada pursued Amorim because of ‘the bond he builds with his players’, while the feeling with Ten Hag was ‘that he could be too distant from the squad’.
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Amorim has apparently been caught slightly off-guard by the size of the task facing him at Man Utd but he has nevertheless maintained some of his personal ideals, such as not holding traditional post-match or half-time team talks. The Portuguese instead prefers for players to ‘hold their own debrief’ if they feel it necessary, before he delivers his own verdict ‘once the emotion of matchday has died down’.
He tends to spend half-time ‘preparing his substitutes’ instead, such as when he left the dressing room in the defeat to Arsenal ‘nearly 10 minutes before the restart’ to issue instructions to Amad.
On the other side of that coin, Amorim was ‘furious’ during the Everton defeat when one of his planned substitutes ‘wasn’t immediately ready to come on when he asked’.
Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw, Alejandro Garnacho, Manuel Ugarte and Mason Mount came on in that game. Take your pick but it was definitely Garnacho.
