Ruben Amorim has been taking Man Utd training and he has a big red coat and ‘his very own whistle’. But the big olds is that Antony is for sale.

Exclusively yours…
The second week of the international break can seriously reduce grown men to tears, and other supposedly grown men to cast about for a back-page story that they can trumpet as an ‘exclusive’.

So here’s Jeremy Cross, a Goliath bestriding the back pages of both the Daily Star and the Daily Mirror.

And he writes – exclusively remember – in the Daily Mirror: ‘MANCHESTER UNITED will offload flop Antony in the January transfer window.’

Well they can’t unless anybody wants to buy him, Jeremy. And we’re telling you now that no f***er wants to buy him.

The best Manchester United can possibly hope is that a club in Turkey or Greece or Saudi Arabia wants to take him on loan while United continue to pay roughly 87% of his wages.

But of more interest to Mediawatch is the idea that this is an ‘exclusive’; after all, this is from October 29 on the talkSPORT website:

Manchester United will cut their losses on £86million flop Antony following Erik ten Hag’s sacking.

talkSPORT understands Antony has already been told he can leave Old Trafford when the transfer window reopens in January after failing to justify becoming the second-most expensive player in United’s history.

Three weeks later it’s a Mirror and Star back-page exclusive as the international break bites. But maybe the ‘exclusive’ part of the story comes next…

And United boss Ruben Amorim has made Portuguese sensation Geovany Quenda his No.1 choice to replace him.

Is that exclusive? God no.

But congratulations Jeremy Cross for you combined two old stories to create an ‘exclusive’ that ‘Manchester United will offload’ a player who nobody wants to sign. And we all move one day closer to the return of Premier League football.

MORE MAN UTD COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Amorim gives Man Utd flop chance in unusual position as first XI is revealed in training session
👉 Ruben Amorim promotes Man Utd academy giant to first team as ex-Arsenal teen set for ‘fast-track’
👉 Five Premier League stars who need to buck up amid threat of January axe

Whistle-stop tour
Much has been made of Ruben Amorim’s first hands-on training session at Manchester United – in which he played Antony as a wing-back of all things – with The Sun going big:

RUBEN AMORIM’S debut training session lifted the lid on his amazing plans to restore Manchester United to the top of English football.

Well it lifts the lid on which 10 senior outfield players he had available, anyway. We do think any ‘amazing plans to restore Manchester United to the top of English football’ might have to play second fiddle to any plans to lift United out of the bottom half of the Premier League table.

Among the absolute gems from those ‘amazing plans’ are that Amorim ‘wore a bright red coat’ and ‘his bright red coat was hard to miss as he shouted words of encouragement from beginning to end’. What a man.

But this is by far our favourite observation from this or any other attempt to glean information from the training session:

Amorim made sure he commanded attention with his very own whistle.

His ‘very own whistle’? Is he 12?

So, so many questions: Is it his (very) own? Did he bring it from Lisbon? Is it club-issue? Was it Ten Hag’s, or did they spring for a new one?

Mediawatch is largely disappointed that the whistle did not match his ‘bright red coat’. Now that would have been an amazing plan…

Can you dig it?
That training session – and presumably whistle – went down a treat with Marcus Rashford, who posted on social media that it was a ‘top session today’.

That was of course a ‘three-word verdict’ (Mail and Mirror) or ‘one word to describe Man Utd training’ (Star).

Or, if you are absolutely shameless and you work for Football Insider: ‘Man United ace Marcus Rashford aims three-word dig at Erik ten Hag.’

Poor Erik. If being sacked by Manchester United wasn’t enough, he then has to suffer the indignity of one of his ex-players hailing a ‘top session today’. Will the cruelty never end?

Pasta his best
And the biggest story in football this snowy Tuesday morning according to MailOnline:

Happy to be back, Erik? Ten Hag returns to his favourite Manchester restaurant just three weeks after his brutal sacking – on the day his successor Ruben Amorim takes training for the first time

‘Just’ three weeks? Should he have waited longer before he cleared out his Cheshire home? What’s the optimum timescale?

But it’s the headline on the MailOnline football homepage that has piqued Mediawatch interest: ‘ERIK’S EMOTIONAL RETURN’.

Just how good is the pasta?

According to reports, Manchester City ‘priority’ target Ousmane Diomande has decided that he would prefer a move to arch-rivals Manchester United.

Ruben Amorim has been appointed to replace Erik ten Hag at Man Utd after the Dutchman was sacked following last month’s disappointing 2-1 loss against West Ham.

Following his arrival at Old Trafford, Amorim promised he wouldn’t sign any players from his former club Sporting Lisbon during the upcoming winter transfer window.

Amorim said: “I won’t be signing [Sporting players] in January, that’s what I said.”

Despite this, Amorim is more open to the prospect of signing Sporting Lisbon players in the summer.

“I don’t know about the summer. The main thing is to hold on until the summer [laughs]. After that, we’ll see, Sporting’s players are very good players. I don’t know. We’ll see.”

This has not prevented Man Utd from being linked with Sporting Lisbon players in recent weeks and Diomande is reportedly on their radar.

The 20-year-old has been linked with several Premier League clubs in recent months as he’s one of the best young centre-backs in Europe.

READ: Five things we definitely learned from Ruben Amorim’s first Manchester United training session

Earlier this month, a report claimed Amorim is ‘determined’ to reunite with Diomande at Man Utd as the Premier League giants look to pull off a ‘major coup’.

A fresh report from Belgian journalist Sascha Tavolieri claims Amorim ‘should be careful not to be overtaken’ in the race to sign Diomande by Man City, who have made him their ‘priority’ target.

However, Diomande is said to be leaning towards a move to Man Utd as he ‘knows’ a reunion with Amorim would be ‘beneficial for his development’.

MORE MAN UTD COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Man Utd star ‘very disappointed’ as £41m exit option is revealed after ‘unhappy’ target rejected ‘offer’
👉 Amorim ‘asks’ for three signings at Man Utd as Ornstein reveals January window expectations
👉 Amorim ‘to axe’ Man Utd man who’s a ‘disruptive influence’ as target ‘replacement’ is named

The report explains.

‘Already on Manchester City’s radar when he was playing at FC Midtjylland, the Skyblues have targeted Diomandé as a priority.’

‘Hugo Vian has already prepared his plan of attack in order to convince the president of Sporting Lisbon, Frederico Varandas.

‘If Ruben Amorim has promised that Manchester United will not recruit any of his former players in January, the Portuguese technician should still be careful not to be overtaken in the race for the sexiest central defender of the moment…

‘That being said, the Red Devils do not want to fall behind and Diomandé has already spoken with Amorim. Joining a coach who made him so strong would be beneficial to his development, and Diomandé knows it, as Portuguese sources have confirmed to us.

‘The player’s will is tending towards the red… but will City put forward strong arguments in advance in January to reverse the situation?’

Cited as one of two players – along with Rasmus Hojlund – by the Manchester United hierarchy as an example of the untapped potential that grants the club space to end the damaging and costly cycle of mass overhauls, Mason Mount has everything to prove having done nothing of note since his £55m move from Chelsea. 

He’s started just two games for United in an injury-hit start to his second campaign after an injury-hit first. But things could not have gone better for Mount off the pitch this season.

The manager who had no plan for him has been sacked and replaced by someone whose formation matches that of the manager under whom he took his game to another level at Chelsea, who is now the manager of his national team. Seriously, it’s like he dreamt it.

Thomas Tuchel described Mount as “the whole package” in their run to win the Champions League together at Chelsea, as the Cobham graduate operated as one of two No.10s behind a central striker. He scored away at Porto in the quarter-final, at home against Real Madrid in the semi and provided the brilliant assist for Kai Havertz in the final against Manchester City.

It was his displays in that campaign and in the Premier League the following season – when he got 11 goals and 10 assists – that cemented his place in the England team and ultimately earned him what has thus far felt like a strange move to Manchester United.

Erik ten Hag bought Mount with a view to playing him in midfield with Bruno Fernandes and very quickly realised that Casemiro wasn’t up to what was a fanciful expectation for him to do the defensive work of three men in the middle. Mount wasn’t about to surpass the United captain as the No.10 and creator-in-chief, which meant it was the wing or – as turned out to be the case more often than not even when fit – nothing.

But while the majority of the United squad look set for a steep learning curve under Amorim and his 3-4-3, for Mount it will feel like slipping into a warm bath, with the inverted winger role he embraced under Tuchel at Chelsea ready and waiting for him to slot into as a round peg amid squares.

MORE MAN UTD COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Ruben Amorim ‘has very own whistle’ as he calls time on Antony
👉 Amorim gives Man Utd flop chance in unusual position as first XI is revealed in training session
👉 Amorim ‘to axe’ Man Utd man who’s a ‘disruptive influence’ as target ‘replacement’ is named

Pedro Goncalves, who claimed 81 goals and 57 assists in 190 appearances for Sporting under Amorim, has been described by Manchester United transfer-peddlers as The Next Bruno Fernandes because he’s Portuguese, plays for Sporting and – let’s face it – clicks for laughs at him being described, far more accurately, as The Next Mason Mount would not reap the same rewards from the advertisers.

Amorim wants sporting director Dan Ashworth to look for “players with intensity” in the January transfer window, but the United boss is presumably aware given his limited budget that he will have to squeeze the majority of that increase in energy from players in the current squad, which will be music to Mount’s ears.

If Mount is anything as a footballer, he’s intense. As Tuchel said: “He’s the guy who recovers fast.”

Doubts that Amorim will hold over the capability or willingness of Marcus Rashford, Alejandro Garnacho and the other struggling forwards under Ten Hag to win back the ball in favourable positions high up the pitch and still track back and do their work defensively will soon disappear with Mount, who can’t help himself. The relentlessness is hardwired.

What Amorim will be concerned about is whether Mount can bring as much to United with the ball as his other options, but assuming his primary aim is to change the style of the team to one which strangles and gets in the faces of the opposition, Mount provides an easy fix. And he’s far from the one-dimensional try-hard footballer his critics typically suggest he is despite significant evidence to the contrary in his time as Chelsea’s best and most creative forward.

Tuchel knows and loves what Mount provides more than perhaps anyone and while the mere suggestion that there could be a place for him in the England squad at the World Cup in 2026 will be met with mass scoffing and mirth right now given the absurdly talented No.10s he would have to beat to a place, it will be hard for the England manager to ignore a mainstay for Manchester United, which now Amorim’s at the wheel, Mount has every chance of becoming.