Amorim bids to expose Man Utd dressing room leak as every Big Six PL manager imposes new ban

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Upon hearing Ruben Amorim has banned food from the Manchester United dressing room on matchdays we immediately imagined Casemiro midway through a half-time burger while Alejandro Garnacho and Antony throw Skittles at each other’s mouths from across the room.

It’s the third of three non-negotiables he’s reportedly implemented on his players thus far in a bid to realise his “mad dogs” ideal at Old Trafford. More to come we suspect, and we’ve picked out what his next ban should be, along with one for each of the other managers of the Big Six Premier League clubs.

Ruben Amorim: Phones in the dressing room
If you have a minute or two, or much, much longer if you so wish, and enjoy social media detectives spouting spurious garbage, we would encourage you to seek out attempts to uncover The Manchester United Line-up Leaker.

There are some poorly doctored DMs to pore over, highfalutin claims from faceless accounts with the inside track but roughly 500 followers and celebrity fans telling non-celebrity fans to leave the club to it while furthering the desperate quest to find the guilty party by Knowing Who It Is but refusing to expose them as X Is Not The Forum. It’s hideously entertaining.

One such unverified claim is that it is a player that’s responsible for leaking the line-ups before they’re made official. Even if it’s not, and it’s in fact a member of the backroom staff or some other individual with dressing room access, there’s a quick fix: no phones, no leaks.

Ange Postecoglou: Public slams
We have no problem with Big Ange calling Timo Werner out after what was an almost impressively lacklustre display against Rangers on Thursday. Most managers choose not to publicly admonish their players, but each to their own.

But his decision to brand the Germany international’s first-half performance as “unacceptable” when barely 24 hours previously he told gathered reporters that he had pulled Cristian Romero up for his public slam of Daniel Levy, outed Postecoglou as a massive hypocrite, with the proximity of those two statements adding to a growing belief that he’s steadily losing his mind having already lost his Great Bloke image.

Ahead of the game against Rangers, he said: “We deal with these things in our own four walls. There’s always issues we need to deal with. The same way I wouldn’t criticise a player or anyone else, we shouldn’t be doing that in a public sense.”

Immediately after the game against Rangers, he said: “He [Werner] wasn’t playing anywhere near the level he should. In the moment we’re in right now – it’s not like we’ve got many options – I need everyone to at least be going out there and trying to give the best of themselves. His performance in the first half wasn’t acceptable.”

Pep Guardiola: Himself from public interactions
Talking of losing one’s mind. If a picture is worth a thousand words football psychology students the world over hit the mother lode as Pep Guardiola appeared for his post-match interview with a gashed nose and a scratched forehead.

We can’t imagine the City Group PR team was hugely enamoured with the image, or indeed Guardiola’s ensuing “self harm” quip, as the reason for their astonishing demise beyond Rodri Being Injured becomes every clearer with each passing public interaction from their once unflappable genius: their manager’s gone a bit mad.

He went Full Mourinho in the 2-0 defeat to Liverpool, brandishing six fingers to the Anfield crowd having been told he was Getting Sacked In The Morning, and then continued in the vein of his former bitter rival after the draw with Crystal Palace, repeating “it’s Rico Lewis” over and over again as if anyone had a p*ssing clue what he was going on about.

Mikel Arteta: Open-play training drills
We would like to congratulate everyone on their attempts to bait Mikel Arteta along with Arsenal players and fans over their reliance on set pieces. But credit where credit’s due, they’ve refused to rise to it.

Just like when he was compared to Mourinho earlier in the year, Arteta saw the similarities drawn between his side and Tony Pulis’ Stoke City as a “compliment”. He wears the “corner kings” crown with pride and the fans have responded in kind, with a mural painted of “the most annoying man in football” to illustrate their new-found love of set pieces, which now draw intensifying ‘Oooooos’ of anticipation as Bukayo Saka or Declan Rice ready their pinpoint deliveries at the Emirates.

We’re absolutely here for it and only hope that Arteta takes a step back in training and hands the reins to Nicolas Jover to run through dead-ball routines, show the players how best to shoot to ensure deflections for corners, with full-backs given twice as many shoulder and back sets in the gym in preparation for the long-throw barrage that’s sure to be shortly introduced to their get-the-ball-in-the-box-for-the-big-f***ers repertoire.

Enzo Maresca: Title talk
Everything we’ve heard from Maresca and his players suggests this ban is already in place when talking publicly, but we also like to imagine a swear jar-like system at the training ground and in the dressing room, or a modern-day alternative, perhaps a title talk contactless card reader.

A £500 fine for discussing any game other than the next one, £750 for references to the gap to Liverpool and a cool £1k for explicit talk of winning the Premier League title.

Arne Slot: First-team regulars from Southampton, Lille and PSV
In an attempt to explain why Federico Chiesa might find game time hard to come by without just pointing to Mohamed Salah, Slot bizarrely claimed “it’s difficult to give him minutes” because “we play so many games”.

There may have been a second-language issue or perhaps he just misspoke, but something’s not right there because surely it’s easier to give him minutes when there are so many games. The Italy international’s been injured but if there is a criticism of Slot in his time at Liverpool it’s been his reticence to rotate his team.

Mohamed Salah, Virgil Van Dijk and Ryan Gravenberch have started all 20 Premier League and Champions League games, with Salah for some reason also brought on to feature in the two League Cup victories.

They face Southampton on Wednesday in the quarter-final of that competition in one clear opportunity to rest that trio and others, before two other chances to rest overworked legs in January against Lille and PSV Eindhoven in the final two group games in the Champions League, having already secured their place in the last 16.