Ruben Amorim has surprised many people during his short spell at Manchester United with his outlandish remarks and furious reactions, which included damaging a television following his club’s latest defeat.

To observers in Portugal, though, this side of Amorim is nothing new. Before he moved to Manchester – where he said the club gave him a now-or-never ultimatum – Amorim watched a Portuguese reporter list the number of situations where he perhaps over-exposed his players at Sporting Lisbon.

“I’ve always spoken freely with you, so I find it funny that you’re complaining about how openly I speak,” Amorim said during a press conference in late September.

“You want an open door, but, when we give a bit more, it becomes a problem. Sometimes, I speak more freely than I probably should, but I think you lot should be the last to complain or make an issue out of it.”

One specific Portuguese word has, in fact, always been used to describe Amorim back home – and that is frontal, which means being straightforward, direct, and saying whatever you want regardless of the consequences.

“He’s not just intelligent. He’s clever, above all. He knows exactly what to say, how to say it, and what he wants to achieve with it,” argues Bruno Andrade, a CNN and TVI pundit who thanked him on his farewell for having always been frontal with the media.

“We could even call him a ‘snake charmer’, yeah.”

Amorim: ‘I can’t control my body language’

Amorim has already explained why he usually refuses to shy away from controversial topics with monosyllabic responses.

“The honesty comes from the fact that sometimes things are obvious to everyone, so it’s no use for me to be here telling a completely different story,” he said.

“Obviously, there are things that are thought through. I already know what I’m going to say when I come to the conferences. Sometimes I say that I don’t read anything, and I really don’t read anything to keep an open mind. If I read everything you write about me, I’ll get upset and be here waiting to respond to a certain question or person.”

Such frontalidade is part of who Amorim is.

“His best attribute is being very frontal,” said his former Sporting captain, Sebastian Coates.

It may be revealed now through his words, but in the past it was a much bigger issue for him as it was obvious in his body language.

“One of the problems I have is exactly that: I can’t control my body language when something is, in my view, incredibly wrong,” he told Expresso newspaper in an interview in 2017.

He has since tried to handle this issue by consulting a psychologist to help moderate some of his impulsive reactions.

‘For him, there are no names, no data, no status’

Despite having never been seen as hot-headed in his playing days as a midfielder – he was sent off only twice, both of them in Qatar because he could not cope with the lack of professionalism from team-mates and opponents – the United coach has raised eyebrows with how cutting he has been as a manager.

“Honestly, I’ve never felt that he struggled to control his nerves,” says Bruno Simao, a centre-back and also a friend who has known Amorim since the age of nine.

“At the beginning of his career, he was very emotional – he would explode a lot, but not in a bad way, not with the players, but in the heat of the moment and all that. But I’ve always thought he had a strong mental and psychological foundation. And that’s why I’ve always said that his communication skills are incredible. He knows every moment of the game, he knows how to get into the player’s head and win the group’s trust.”

Simao played alongside Amorim at Belenenses and Benfica and then had him as coach at Casa Pia, but not even the close bond their families share stopped his friend from almost releasing him.

“He’s so strict that on the day I missed a training session, I was done – I wouldn’t play under him again. The only reason why I wasn’t let go was because the other players changed his mind. Then I had a chat with him and explained everything, but in his strictness, regardless of the degree of friendship, regardless of where I had played or whatever, for him, there are no names, no data, no status. Everyone is equal,” Simao recalls.

Amorim was like this at Casa Pia and has been like this at United. As he often says in his conferences, it is his way or the highway. He will not change that.

“He is direct and honest because he understood early on that it’s the best approach to win over the players, the board, the fans, and, above all, the press,” Andrade says.

“There is clearly a plan behind every sentence he says. He doesn’t throw his own under the bus in public. The statement from last weekend served to put even more pressure on himself and the team, all because he knows that everyone can give more. It also served as a message to the board, as he urgently needs signings. And no less important, it also resonated with what the fans think.”