It has been a whirlwind 48 hours in the life of Ruben Filipe Marques Amorim.
Ever since Manchester United announced the sacking of Erik ten Hag on Monday morning, the 39-year-old has been strongly linked with replacing the Dutchman.
From preparing for a Portuguese League Cup tie against Nacional on Tuesday night, and what could be his final game in charge of Sporting Lisbon, Amorim may be in the dugout when Chelsea visit Old Trafford in the Premier League on Sunday if United can persuade his club to release him immediately.
The former Benfica midfielder would then become the sixth permanent manager since Sir Alex Ferguson retired to face the challenge of reviving the biggest club in English football. Mail Sport sizes up the task facing him.
Sort the diamonds from the duds
Although United spent more than £600million on players under Ten Hag, Amorim will arrive in Manchester to find a squad that is still a work in progress.
In time, he will want some of his own players at Old Trafford but there is no guarantee United will have any money to spend in the January transfer window and the summer is a long way off.
Until then, Amorim must work out which of Ten Hag’s squad suit his 3-4-3 formation and high-pressing style. Not easy when the Dutchman didn’t always seem to be sure of his best team either.
Ten Hag relied heavily on players he worked with at Ajax or who had a background in the Netherlands, but there were other signings such as Casemiro, Rasmus Hojlund, Mason Mount, Leny Yoro, Manuel Ugarte and Jonny Evans. While Andre Onana and Lisandro Martinez have worked out well, and Christian Eriksen is enjoying a renaissance at United, £82m flop Antony became a symbol of failure under Ten Hag.
Joshua Zirkzee and Mount are in danger of going the same way, and there are question marks over Matthijs de Ligt. Meanwhile, Noussair Mazraoui had a heart scare recently and Tyrell Malacia — Ten Hag’s first signing — hasn’t played since May 2023.
Amorim must carry out a quick evaluation of the squad and decide which players fit into his system — particularly getting them to buy into his trademark press, which has been an issue for a number of United managers.
Find a role for Van Nistelrooy?
When a manager leaves and another comes in, their coaching staff often move with them.
The situation is more complicated at United after the club overhauled Ten Hag’s backroom team in the summer and brought in three Dutchmen — assistants Ruud van Nistelrooy and Rene Hake, as well as goalkeeper coach Jelle ten Rouwelaar – and the Swede Andreas Georgson.
Van Nistelrooy has been appointed caretaker boss but it remains to be seen how he and the rest of Ten Hag’s staff fit into the new set-up.
Amorim will want some familiar faces around him and his assistants at Sporting, Carlos Fernandes and Adelio Candido, have worked with him at other clubs as well.
Give Ugarte a Sporting chance
One player who shouldn’t have any problem adapting to the new manager is United’s £50.8m summer signing Ugarte, who enjoyed his best years under Amorim at Sporting.
The Uruguay midfielder has made just four starts for United despite an injury to Kobbie Mainoo, with Ten Hag reverting to an old familiar pairing of Casemiro and Eriksen.
Ugarte ranked among the top one per cent of midfielders in Europe based on his stats in the 2022-23 Primeira Liga season, earning a £51m move to Paris Saint-Germain.
After a difficult start to life at United, he will be rubbing his hands at the prospect of working with Amorim again.
Kickstart spluttering £350m strike-force
Ten Hag’s failure to halt United’s slide to 14th in the Premier League table ultimately proved his undoing at United after a lowest-ever eighth-place finish last season.
His team’s problems centred around scoring. United ended with a negative goal difference for the first time and have once again slipped into minus figures this term with a meagre eight goals in nine league games.
Fans are crying out for an attacking, entertaining team in the best traditions of the club, and that is one of the reasons United have turned to Amorim. Sporting scored 96 goals on their way to winning the title last season, and well over a hundred in total.
The Portuguese has become renowned for an exhilarating brand of football, and he must get the best out of a spluttering strike-force at United that cost more than £350million to assemble – not including academy products Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho who have provided the main attacking threat this season.
Hojlund needs to do more to justify his £72m transfer fee and Amorim must find a way to spark Zirkzee into life.
Make Rashford happy again
Rashford is one of United’s biggest assets – and highest earners on more than £300,000-a-week – but too often under Ten Hag he looked like someone who would rather be anywhere but his boyhood club.
After scoring 30 goals in the Dutchman’s first campaign, Rashford dropped off dramatically last season. He has looked more like his old self with three goals so far, but was left on the bench at Crystal Palace after scoring twice against Barnsley in the Carabao Cup and then taken off at half-time in Porto despite getting on the scoresheet again. It did nothing to ease concerns over a fragile relationship with Ten Hag.
Amorim needs to reinvigorate a player who turns 27 on Thursday and convince Rashford that he can enjoy the best years of his career at Old Trafford.
The new manager will also have to iron out the disciplinary issues that twice landed Rashford in hot water with Ten Hag for going nightclubbing. Amorim has the reputation of a positive man manager, and he will need those powers to put a smile back on Rashford’s face.
Banish the left-back blues
Amorim is known for playing three at the back and pushing his attacking wing-backs higher up the pitch.
Even with Yoro recovering from surgery on a broken metatarsal and Harry Maguire working his way back from injury, the new manager has a number of options in central defence with Martinez, De Ligt, Victor Lindelof and Evans.
It’s in the wide areas where United have been vulnerable under Ten Hag, with left-back their Achilles heel. As well as Malacia’s long-term absence, Luke Shaw hasn’t played for United since February due to a troublesome hamstring injury.
In a press conference for Wednesday’s Carabao Cup tie against Leicester recorded before his sacking, Ten Hag revealed that Shaw has suffered another setback and will take even longer to return.
‘The process is not going as we expected, that’s the truth,’ he said. ‘There’s a setback, if you want to call it that, but we also want to do it carefully.
‘When he is now dropping again, we are in the wrong process so we want to be very careful. We know his past, so we want to do it right because he will have a big impact on our performances.’
After Ten Hag tried a number of different left-back replacements last season, Diogo Dalot and Mazraoui have filled in this season with limited success.
Get Bruno back to his best
Amorim didn’t become Sporting Lisbon coach until a few weeks after Bruno Fernandes left the club for United in a £68m deal in January 2020, but the two men know each other and are said to have spoken since the United job became vacant on Monday.
Fernandes is going through arguably his toughest spell at Old Trafford despite weighing in five assists this season. The United captain is yet to score and has also been sent off twice – even though the first red card against Tottenham was later rescinded.
Amorim will be hoping to revive a player who spoke warmly about his attributes earlier this month. ‘Sporting went 20 years without winning championships and Amorim arrived and has already won two. This shows that the work has been done well,’ said Fernandes.
‘If he could manage to do the same in England, Spain or anywhere else – you will never know until you get there – I’m sure his qualities are there for everyone to see.’
Clear the casualty unit
United thought their chronic injury problems were a thing of the past, but they returned this season to plague Ten Hag once again.
‘It holds us back in our levels and also in our position in the league,’ said the Dutchman after he was without nine players for last week’s Europa League with Fenerbahce and then saw Antony carried off with a sprained ankle.
Last season, United had more than 60 cases of illness and injury. It didn’t help in the summer that they signed Yoro even though his metatarsal problem showed up in the medical – which is more than can be said for Mazraoui’s heart issue.
Has the injury crisis been down to a freak situation, a fault within United’s medical department or an issue with Ten Hag’s training methods? That’s something else Amorim will have to get to the bottom of.
