‘I can be ruthless’: Ruben Amorim warns United of tough times ahead

Ruben Amorim has warned his Manchester United players he has a ruthless streak he will not be afraid to use if they fail to meet his demands. The Portuguese has a reputation as an astute man-manager as well as an innovative tactician but it will not all be sweetness and light.

The 39-year-old begins life as head coach at Ipswich on Sunday aware of the task ahead as he tries to turn United around. Amorim arrived with the team 13th in the Premier League after four wins from 11 matches and ­needing to improve results ­if they are to have ambitions of European qualification for next season.

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“I can be ruthless when I have to be,” Amorim said. “If you think as a team I will be the nicest guy that you have ever seen, if there is someone just thinking that, I will be a different person. I’m not that kind of guy that wants to show that he is a boss. They will feel it in the small details. I can be the smiling one, but then when you have a job to do I will be a different person, and they understand that.”

Amorim insists he will take risks to change the tactics and style but will have limited training time because of United’s hectic schedule. There will be two games a week for the foreseeable future as United balance domestic and European competition. Amorim will get his first taste of Old Trafford on Thursday when Bodø/Glimt visit in the Europa League.

“It’s so much harder to come to a team in the middle of the season,” Amorim said, “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. 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 during recovery training but we will find ways to try to cope.”

Although Amorim’s predecessor, Erik ten Hag, won a trophy in each of his two full seasons, that United have not secured the league title since 2013 looms large over Old Trafford. Sir Alex Ferguson was the most recent United manager to lift the trophy. He did so 13 times and is the club’s most successful manager.

“It’s hard to copy someone, so I have to be me,” Amorim said when asked whether he had sought Ferguson’s advice. “I’m not the best person to show the history of Manchester United. It should be the club first and also me, because I’m always paying attention to those details and try to focus our players on the history of the club, but not the recent history.

“You have to be very demanding. This is a club that needs to win, it has to win – we have to show that to our players. It’s a different time; I cannot be the same guy Sir Alex Ferguson was. I have to have a different approach but I can also be demanding with a different approach. That is my focus.”