Ruben Amorim says he will be “ruthless” ahead of Manchester United’s Premier League clash with Ipswich Town at Portman Road tomorrow.
Speaking in the embargoed section of the pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow’s game, Amorim admitted “There are some places to have fun and some places to work hard. So I can be ruthless when I have to be. But, if you think as a team, I will be the nicest guy you have seen.
“If there is someone just thinking about himself, I will be a different person.”
“I’m not the type of guy that wants to show that he’s the boss. They will feel it in the small details.”
“I can be the smiling one, but when they have a job to do, I can be a different person.”
“It’s hard to copy someone, so I have to be me. I’m always paying attention to details, trying to focus the players on the history of the club, not the recent history. You have to be very demanding. This is a club that has to win things.”
“It’s a different time. I cannot be the same guy that Alex Ferguson was – it’s a different time and I need to have a different approach. But I can also be demanding.
In regard to joining in mid season, he said: “It’s so much harder to come to a team in the middle of the season, because you have to know the players during the games, so you are talking about no national team periods to work with the players – it’s just games.
“It depends, if you are winning, it’s a lot of fun having a lot of games, trying to make some changes tactically and winning. But if you are losing, you don’t have the time in training to work out everything you want to work.”
“Where you can improve a team is in training. This is the most important aspect.
“You can tell the players to recover and to react really fast but if you don’t make any exercise with that it’s really hard to do it on video or in recovery training but we will find ways to try to cope with that.”
On the academy players at the club, Amorim said:
“It’s the project of Manchester United. Nowadays, you need young guys, guys from the academy for everything. To bring that history of the club because they feel the club in a different way.
“And also because you have all these rules with financial fair play, when a player from our academy is so much different to the players that we bought and then we sell. So everything is connected. I will try to help all the players, especially the young ones.”
Asked about catching up Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, Amorim said:
“I think it’s a problem for everybody here. But we have so much to do, we can’t focus on anyone.
“We just have to focus on our club, improving our club and not focusing on the other clubs. So let’s focus on Manchester United.
“It’s amazing if you can beat that team, it’s a good sign, but let’s focus on United.”
The first part of the press conference is covered here.
Featured image Justin Setterfield via Getty Images
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Red Billy
Red Billy is the managing editor of The Peoples Person, author of three books and totally obsessed with football’s transfer market. Billy still insists Matteo Darmian and Alex Telles could have made it at United given half a chance.
