Every word - part two: Ruben's Ipswich presser

Saturday 23 November 2024 22:30

Manchester United's new head coach Ruben Amorim spoke with conviction and confidence in his first press conference on Friday at Carrington.

The 39-year-old is gearing up for his opening assignment at Portman Road on Sunday, with three points the focus as we prepare to meet Ipswich Town for the first time in the Premier League since 2002.

In a period of change at United, Amorim spoke to journalists from all over the globe who gathered to hear him speak just over 24 hours ago.

We can now bring you every word the Portuguese coach had to say in part two of his media briefing, ahead of our upcoming clash in East Anglia...

Part two: Amorim's first press conference Video

Press conference part two | Our new head coach spoke about Manchester City and Sir Alex ahead of our trip to Ipswich...

Hi Ruben, we hear a lot about your relationship with former players that you have worked with in the past and all the pictures we see are of you smiling. To get to the level you are at, you clearly have a ruthless side and nobody gets to the top without that ruthless streak. Have you had to show that side that we haven't seen and would you be scared to show that side to any player you feel doesn't buy into your methods? How long would you give them to then buy into your methods? "You can be the same person with a positive person that can understand this is one place to be, then in the dressing room there is some places to have fun and then some places to work hard. So I can be ruthless when I have to be. If you think as a team I will be the nicest guy you have ever seen, [or] if there is someone thinking that in themselves that I will be a different person. I am not that kind of guy that wants to show he is the boss. I think 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. They understand that."

Hi Ruben, when Sir Alex Ferguson first came to Manchester United, he leaned quite heavily onto Sir Matt Busby. Not in terms of management but in terms of learning about the history and about the culture of the club. Will you be doing the same as Sir Alex? Have you met him? "No, not yet. I didn't have that opportunity and it is hard to copy someone, I have to be me. I am not the best person in here to share the history of Manchester United. It should be the club first and also me because I am also always paying attention to those details. I try to focus my players on the history of the club, not the recent history, so you have to be demanding as this is a club that needs to win. We have to win and we have to show that to our players. This is a different time and I cannot be the same guy that Sir Alex Ferguson was. It is a different time and I have to have a different approach. I can also be demanding with a different approach, so that is my focus."

Hi Ruben, coming in during the middle of the season, do you find that more difficult or is it a benefit of there is a lot of matches here, Sunday-Thursday for a long time, no international breaks till next year. Or is it difficult because you have no training sessions to implement your new ideas given there will be a lot of recovery and not spending time as much time on the training pitch? "It is so much harder to come to a team in the middle of the season because you have to know the players during the games. You are talking about no national team periods to work with the players, it is just games. It depends, if you are winning, it is a lot of fun having lots of games and trying to make some changes tactically and winning games. But if you are losing, you do not have that time in training to work out everything you want to work out. I think where you can improve a team is in training. This is the most important aspect. You can say the players could recover by either reacting really fast, but if you do not make any exercise with that it is really hard to do it. On video or in recovering trainings. It is really hard in this way, but we try and find ways to deal with that."

Ruben you had a lot of success with young players at Sporting, how important will they be to your project at Manchester United? "It is a project of Manchester United. Nowadays you need young guys, guys from the Academy for everything. To [help] bring that history to the club because they feel the club in a different way. And also because you have all those rules about Financial Fair Play [FFP] when a player from our Academy is so much different to the players we sell. That we bought and then we sell. Everything is connected and I will try to help all the players, especially the young ones."

Ruben the Premier League has been dominated in the past decade by mostly the clubs down the road. The manager who has overseen that in Pep Guardiola has just signed a new two-year contract, news that a lot of Premier League rivals are probably bemoaning. Are you relishing the challenge of taking on arguably the greatest manager of his generation? "I think it is a problem for everybody here. We have so much to do, we cannot focus on anybody. We just have to focus on our club and improve our club and not focus on the other clubs. Lets focus on Manchester United."

Do you like the test it presents for you? "Yeah. It is amazing as if you can beat that team, it is a good sign. We are focused on Manchester United."

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