Ruben Amorim has told Gary Neville that he ‘truly believes Manchester United will succeed’ under his management.

Amorim gets his Man Utd tenure underway against Ipswich Town on Sunday.

The former Sporting head coach replaced Erik ten Hag earlier this month after the Dutchman was sacked for a miserable start to 2024/25.

Red Devils legend Neville sat down with Amorim ahead of his debut and the Portuguese is under no illusions that it will be an easy job to get the club back fighting for the Premier League title.

“The first impression is that it’s so big, with a lot of departments,” Amorim said. “I came from a big club in a small country. Here is a different world.

“You have a lot to do. You are not just a coach. You have to be something more.

“So it’s a little bit different, but I think I’m prepared for that.

“You feel the weight of the history and I want to be part of that. If we win here, it will be different than in every club in England, you can feel that but you also understand that it’s going to be tough.

“And it’s Manchester United. It doesn’t matter the last years.

“We will have really hard moments but in the end, I truly believe that we are going to succeed.”

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On where previous managers went wrong, Amorim said: “I will not try to find out the right thing to do or try to find out what was missing with Erik ten Hag, with Jose Mourinho, with Louis van Gaal.

“I will not try that because I think it’s a waste of time. They chose me because they saw something and I do something in a clear way.

“I really don’t know what the (other managers) missed here but I know I will do my thing, my way and try to find out what is missing in my way of seeing football.”

On getting Man Utd playing further up the pitch, Amorim told Neville: “First thing, I think we have to be better athletes. That is something that you can acknowledge when we are here and we see the data.

“When I say fitter, it’s not being thinner or anything about that. It’s the data. You have to understand the data to press high, what is the average metres that you have to run, the sprints.

“You have all this data and you have to cope with that. So you already know your goal is to reach that. You can run a lot but if you don’t understand the game, it doesn’t matter. But the first point to press high, you have to be very fit and you have to cope with the demands of pressing high.

“The problem is with the ball. I think we lose the ball too fast. We win the ball, we lose the ball. And you cannot press high all the time. With the ball, we can press better. So the focus this week also was in that part.

“If you don’t lose the ball, you can push higher. If you are higher, you can press better. So it’s like a snowball. Everything is connected.”

Amorim also revealed that he would love to pick the brains of legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson and former club captain Roy Keane.

He said: “Roy Keane was a massive player and I like players with character. I think they can improve. It was not just what Roy Keane did on the pitch, it was the way he influenced the others. I think that is very important in one player.

“You must have this kind of player in the big clubs. I hope we’ll have in the future players like Roy Keane.

“Sir Alex Ferguson, you want to ask so many things. I think he will talk about horses. I don’t understand anything about horses. But it will be amazing to meet that kind of character.”

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In the ’60s and ’70s, every team had a dribbler, often a tricky winger, who was only in the team to break up the psychotic defending. He was usually the first to get studs down his calf and be booted up in the air but was who you paid your 75p to see in your best Brutus 28″ flares

Pele v Bulgaria
He was the first modern player really, athletically but solidly built and blessed both with pace over a sprint and close ball control. He didn’t have a great 1966 World Cup due to injury, but he turned it on in this 2-0 win.

At one point taking the ball down the left, stopping, confronted with a defender, he injected a burst of pace to take him past before a second came over to challenge him. Pele nudged it past him into the box and crossed it. Remember a defender could perform open-heart surgery on you and not get sent off. It’s an elegant move born of quick feet, strength and remarkable change of pace. His reputation was well-earned.

Rodney Marsh v Birmingham City
He was a player of remarkable, deft skill, capable of all sorts of goals but entertaining – remember that word when you’re slowing down videos just to prove something should’ve been a penalty – was what he did best. He would just try outrageous things. It didn’t matter if he didn’t score, it was just fun to see him try.

To complete his hat-trick in this game, he collects the ball 25 yards out, centrally, a crowd of defenders around him. He steps on the ball, rolls it back, pushes it forward, taps it and buries it, completely fooling the defenders. On top of that he looked like he played in Status Quo.

Stan Bowles v Sunderland
QPR were a great team to watch in the mid-70s, full of pace and flair. Liverpool didn’t invent fast counter-attacking from an opposition corner, QPR were doing it in 1976. Here Sunderland take a corner. It’s headed out, I think, to Dave Thomas (himself a great socks-down winger) who sends it 50 yards down the line to Stan who cuts inside, then outside at pace and has scored before Sunderland know what hit them. Stan just played for the fun, didn’t take it too seriously and was usually in the bookies ten minutes before kick-off.

George Best v West Ham
Yes, he was simply amazing and as good as you’ve heard. In the mid-60s he was a will-o-the-wisp who floated across the pitch with light footsteps and tremendous pace. By the 1971/72 season his powers were waning a little, but here he scored a hat-trick. The second was classic Best, coming in off the left and taking the ball left, then right, then left again, beating about four defenders, pushing it across the goal and firing it into the corner. Magical. Sad about the drink.

Johan Cruyff v CSKA
The boy was a dancer, with the lightest of touches. The Ajax team of the early ’70s was so good and played a progressive sort of football which would have beaten most sides today. Against CSKA in the European Cup, in a 6-1 win, he played all the hits, swerving right, then dropping a shoulder to go left, throwing off defenders as he did so. Then he threw in a Cruyff turn to finally get away from the last defender, now on his backside and with twisted blood, Cruyff then pushed it wide with his right foot and passed it to a striker. More like dancing than football, plus he looked like the lead guitarist in a prog rock band.

Read more from Johnny Nic on the great Johan Cryuff

Tony Currie v Orient
He was Sheffield United’s maverick with impressive sideburns for many years before going to Dirty Leeds. Had great balance and vision mixed with talent. Here he cuts in from the right, feigns to go left, dumps one on his backside, feigns to go right, dumps another on his backside, flicks the ball up with his toe and volleys it into the net. And it only cost 75p to go in; admittedly you’d have to watch Orient too.

Charlie Cooke v Spurs
Part of that early ’70s Blues side that won the FA Cup and the Cup Winners’ Cup. In some ways the flip side to Chopper Harris, he operated on the left wing and was a superb passer of the ball, weaving his spell for others to score.

In this game, he collects the ball initially unopposed, just over the halfway line, before burning down the wing as defenders swarm around him, trying to bully him off the ball. But with deft feet he flicks it between two, knocks it left to beat another and crosses it for Peter Osgood to head it home. Only scored 30 goals in around 370 appearances across two stretches and was born in gorgeous St. Monans in Fife, a picturesque ex-fishing village.

Liam Brady v Coventry
A mercurial force and one of Arsenal’s best ever players. I’ve rarely seen anyone with better vision which he combined with surging pace and a left foot which would be routinely and bizarrely described as ‘a wand’, which, if my Sooty knowledge is right, is a small stick of wood.

He was one of those players who once he was running, the ball seemed stuck to his foot. In this game, he collects the ball at the back of the centre circle, sees a gap and surges forward as defenders close on him, pushing it right and left to beat them and emerges at the edge of the box free and clear to score. He played in Italy, you know.

Michel Platini v Inter Milan
You might know him as a gravy hoovering, probably corrupt FIFA bod, but he was one of the best footballers in the world. Playing for Juventus he once ran at the defence, flicking the ball at speed past defenders, then leathered into the net. There wasn’t much he couldn’t do, including refusing free money from Sepp Blatter. That 1984 French team would kick ass today.

Gabriel Batistuta v Manchester United
Still seems modern to me, despite being at his peak 30 years ago. He looked like a rockstar and scored incredible goals, sometimes running the length of the pitch to do so. This time the ball is played from midfield into him, he takes it 30 yards out with his back to goal, surrounded by defenders, rolls Jaap Stam, flicks it up, keeping the ball under control and absolutely belts it into the net. Not so much a dribble as a phenomenal piece of skill.

Looking at his goals now, although he was a big star at the time, he has absolutely no equal today. Even the best look worse than him.

READ NEXT: Gabriel Batistuta: The Angel sent from footballing heaven

We’re in an unsettling state of actually hoping Manchester United do well under Ruben Amorim. We’re finding it really, really hard to dislike the new Red Devils manager, try as we might.

We understand that the Old Trafford browbeating hasn’t begun and he may yet turn into a miserable curmudgeon, but he currently seems very happy to be there and keeps talking about “fun”, which is – well – fun.

We haven’t entirely lost our ABU senses – there would undeniably be significant hilarity in victory for Ipswich on Sunday – but with our Amorim fan-club hats on we’ve come up with the dream scenario in his first game as Manchester United manager.

Marcus Rashford hat-trick
We also retain a soft spot for Marcus Rashford despite the mad b*stard flying first class to New York to watch a basketball game in his time off rather than staying at home looking at his running stats and drinking Huel.

But guys, Gary Neville really “didn’t want ‘Neville hammers Rashford’” stories and was no doubt astonished having worked in and around football for three decades that he woke up to find ‘Neville hammers Rashford’ stories, having questioned his professionalism and called him an attention-seeker on a podcast.

We hope that such baseless besmirching of his character garners little more than an eye roll from Rashford these days, who is either a media darling or a target of rebuke – there’s no in-between. And the only way he’s going to get the media and fans onside is to start scoring goals again, because his feeding-hungry-children bit carried very little weight and if anything made his critics more angry as he needed to Focus On Football.

It looks as though Amorim is going to hand Rashford the opportunity as United’s No.9. We don’t think anyone is particularly convinced by that plan – Rashford and Amorim included – and we all know full well that if Rashford doesn’t score from that position on Sunday there will be widespread calls for the guy who’s scored 18 goals in 55 games but is granted extraordinary leeway compared to any other player, to start ahead of him.

A hat-trick would obviously be great for Rashford, Amorim would be hailed as a genius and Rasmus Hojlund can be the understudy he should have always been as a young striker.

Kieran McKenna sullies himself
As we’ve already said we want Amorim to do a good job and it feels slightly premature to be discussing his sacking. But there will be points when he will be under pressure at Manchester United and seemingly set for the exit, whether this season, in five seasons’ time or after a long drawn out Sir Alex Ferguson-like legacy that now we’ve imagined it makes us think that rather than wishing him well we should be putting some sort of jinx on him to prevent such a painful occurrence.

Anyway, what Amorim won’t want when the pressure builds is for there to be too many (or any, for that matter) attractive options to replace him at the club, and we reckon if we asked people now who will be the Manchester United manager after Amorim, a significant number would name McKenna as next in line.

Now, we suspect there will be sickening amounts of respect all round on Sunday what with McKenna coaching many of the Manchester United players that will be turning out and the Red Devils fans appreciative of his work in the academy and as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s assistant before working his magic at Ipswich to bring them back to the promised land.

We don’t quite know what McKenna would have to do to sully himself to the point where he’s no longer considered a future option for United. He could give the fans the finger or call Bruno Fernandes a pr*ck, but he’s not one for confrontation even when provoked.

More likely he does something entirely by accident that the United fans can’t forgive, like Leny Yoro suffering another serious injury by falling into him. Even that may not be enough though. Probably needs to call someone a c***.

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Leif Davis gives Antony the runaround
There would be no better way for Amorim to endear himself to his new bosses than to find a use for a footballer they will otherwise have to take a £60m bath over, but we’re trying to be realistic.

Antony has been playing at right wing-back in training this week and assuming he doesn’t c*ck up so badly as to cost United the game against Ipswich, him being taught a lesson by Leif Davis would be no bad thing for Amorim, who can send the Brazilian packing to the reserves ahead of a January sale.

When asked about it he can raise his eyebrows, shrug and tell Dan Ashworth “hey, I tried” before playing Noussair Mazraoui.

Gary Cotterill banned from Old Trafford
We can see Gary now, rehearsing his opening gambit in Portuguese to welcome Amorim into the press conference after victory over Ipswich as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the viral video in which the Sky Sports reporter was outed as a Little Englander after imploring Amorim To Talk Proper while still managing Sporting. But in Amorim’s dreams he won’t be afforded the opportunity to make amends.

We wouldn’t blame Amorim for not wanting to answer another question from Cotterill again and toyed with the idea of him going to every press conference but not ever being picked out to ask one – which would indeed be funny – but have instead decided that the ideal scenario for Amorim would be for Cotterill to be barred from Old Trafford and forced to wait outside while the new United boss mouths “who’s got the ‘cold shoulders’ now?” through a window.

READ MORE: Ruben Amorim takes the Sporting high ground for Man Utd as shameful Gary Cotterill deserves the ‘cold shoulder’

Win
Probably a given what with Rashford scoring a hat-trick, but the gaping hole in midfield could still have been there and the defenders may again have forgotten to defend. Not in this case: the donut is filled and three centre-backs cures all defensive ills.

An academy debutant
One of the key factors in Amorim being given the job was supposedly his success in bringing talent into the Sporting first team from the academy and with a PSR-forced tightening of the purse strings at United, trust in the youth will likely be key to his success at Old Trafford.

The academy players need to be given the chance to prove themselves, and a game like this, with United 4-0 up with 20 minutes to play, is the perfect opportunity to blood that young talent and a sure fire way for the club chiefs, the fans and even the neutrals to fall immediately in love with Amorim.

There’s nothing quite like One Of Our Own, whether that be a 6ft 5ins giant of a centre-back or an ex-Arsenal striker.