Sports Chat Hub
Ruben Amorim has just taken over as Manchester United manager following the sacking of Erik Ten Hag after a disappointing string of form to start the season. He is a renowned head coach and one of the youngest, hottest prospects on the market for football managers.
Amorim is coming off of a successful few seasons at Sporing, who are receiving €10 million for Amorim’s contract termination. He took Sporting Lisbon within a few seasons from a feeble giant of the past, to a rejuvenated and highly successful team; ending a 19 year drought in the Primeira Liga. Ruben Amorim is driven and guided Sporting past his previous team in the League Cup final and also took Sporting to the League in only his first season, with one loss throughout.
Amorim’s path in football is highly similar to that of Mourinho, both are charismatic Portuguese managers who have begun their careers reigniting a giant of the past in Portugal, with Porto for Mourinho. They also have now both been named as Manchester United managers since the retirement of Alex Ferguson. One’s spell was arguably the best since Fergie walked away and the other we await to see carry them forward from Ten Hag’s fruitless management this season.
Manchester United have finally landed Ruben Amorim after a week of rumours and speculation following the departure of Ten Hag and it’s finally over. Amorim will take over at Manchester United, taking up the hot seat that many men have failed to fill to the expectations of Manchester United and their fans.
Amorim is an excellent man manager and the locker room at Manchester United is in dire need of revival. At Sporting Lisbon he was able to transform a team without many signings, as Sporting have often been a talent factory with players like Ronaldo and Bruno Fernandes rising through their ranks and turn them into a perennial winner in Portugal.
This could be of great use at Manchester United and is presumably one of the reasons for his signing. After Ten Hag’s fruitless £615 million spending across two seasons, it is unlikely Amorim will have much if any money to spend in the transfer window. Surely, after what he was able to do at Sporting: taking them to a double in only his first season, Amorim’s transformational mentality will allow him to change the mentality of a locker room that has some players bought by Mourinho. Meaning that Amorim will be their sixth coach at this club, for these players it seems that when they don’t like a coach the big voices in the team are able to sway the locker room something we have seen a lot with Rangnick, Ole, Mourinho and now Ten Hag. He will need to develop young players and potentially move on some of the dead wood in the club like Luke Shaw, Rashford and Maguire. Amorim has a reputation for developing players with the likes of Gyökeres or Inacio (who were players in Amorim’s title winning team last season) and he will need to turn this ability on for players like Garnacho, Amad and Mainoo who could be the corner stones of a future dynasty for the reds.
Ruben Amorim is a very attacking minded manager, something he has used well in Portugal: guiding his Sporting side past Braga to a league cup final in a season where Sporting had one loss in the league. This will have been highly attractive for Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Amorim prioritises fluid build-up and possession football, often involving centre-backs in build-up play. At Manchester United his style of play could fit very nicely, although he doesn’t have a natural left wing-back that he has used at Sporting Lisbon he does have players like De Ligt and Masaroui who can fit into his style of play perfectly. It may take a season to see a full tactical transformation for the Manchester squad but when he comes in, a fluid and goalscoring disposition should take over a Manchester United team that has scored the third least goals of any team in the Premier League with Haaland and Palmer having scored more or as many goals as their entire squad.
A new dawn rises at Old Trafford and it will be interesting to see how United’s youngest manager of the 21st Century, Amorim, can transform a team that has struggled so much. Will he face the same locker room issues? Can he deliver to the high expectations of the Red Devils? A fanbase who are so critical of managers and always expect success. These questions cannot be answered yet, but if we let them answer themselves throughout the season, will we be able to measure the success of Ruben Amorim as Manchester United manager?