Man Utd: Amorim has one key quality that breeds hope of success where others failed

There’s an awful long way to go before we have any real idea of whether Ruben Amorim is going to be a successful Manchester United manager.

But what’s clear already is that he’s definitely got a chance. Most obviously, and it’s foolish to pretend otherwise, that’s because his on-field work has proven pedigree having been immensely successful in Portugal. He is a manager with a distinct and recognisable style of play that can deliver success if backed and supported from above.

That’s a pretty big if, because This Is Manchester United Football Club We’re Talking About, a place where nonsense has long since taken hold. But it’s definitely doable. The sense one gets with Amorim as a United manager is already a very exciting one; the nature of his football and the ingredients required for it to work (few of which United are currently in possession of) gives a very real high-wire sense of an appointment that can either succeed very hard or fail very hard with very little middle ground.

But the other major factor that has us currently leaning towards the former is just how impressive Amorim is at the off-field stuff.

Let’s be absolutely clear: none of Amorim’s easy charm or obvious charisma or thoughtful answers in press conferences and post-match interviews will be worth a damn if the football is sh*te. It will, though, make it far easier to get the necessary buy-in he needs from inside and outside the club on what it inevitably going to be a rocky road in which significant setbacks are inevitable.

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United – and thus, really, the Barclays itself given their status within it – have been crying out for a manager with a bit about him for some time now.

In a hectic and at times deeply difficult first month at United, Amorim has been nothing but impressive off the field, and we would strongly contend that is a huge factor in him avoiding excessive scrutiny for the bad results he’s suffered and excess praise for the good.

It’s vital he can maintain that, because bending this recalcitrant, badly-assembled squad to his will is going to take a lot of time, involve a lot of dodgy moments and more than a few painful goodbyes.

How Amorim handles it all will have a big part to play in the perception of all that which, like it or not, will absolutely matter.

He’s already effortlessly handled everything the job can throw at him in this regard, from his very first major interview in English football being rudely and inexplicably interrupted by Ed Sheeran which was itself rudely and inexplicably encouraged by starry-eyed presenter and pundits, to Marcus Rashford’s BOMBSHELL revelations while delivering presents to school kids with the ghost of Christmas past, Henry Winter.

We’ve already said that our response to the Sheeran ridiculousness would simply have been to tell them to f*** off and walk away, which is just one of the many thousands of reasons why Ruben Amorim is where he is and we are where we are. He simply carried on enormously politely in the moment, and when quizzed about it later effortlessly deflected with a neat line about Roy Keane being the real star there, that had the added bonus of being guaranteed to get United fans more onside too.

His response to the Rashford news was just so perfectly pitched; yes he does need a new challenge, but there’s a new challenge for him right here. It’s just great, isn’t it? It comes with no guarantee that Rashford will be welcomed back into the fold but also offers that opportunity. It is a response that leaves all possibilities open. Rashford will probably still leave and probably should still leave, but it won’t now look like Amorim forcing out a bloke who has been at United since childhood.

It feels kind of churlish and unkind to paint this as being manipulative on Amorim’s part, because we do think he’s quite a genuine guy. But he absolutely knows how to play the game and anything that can Teflon-coat him when it comes to the trickier moments on this journey has to help.

What Amorim has already managed to do – and Arne Slot has done this superbly too in his early days in England – is both entirely understand the pathetic little games the British media like to play, while also knowing that when talking to them you’re not really talking to them; you’re talking to the fans.

Most managers get the first, but a lot – along with pretty much every single journalist, by the way, but that’s a separate piece – either don’t grasp or forget altogether about the latter.

Amorim has already got it down. When leaving out Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho for the derby, the first thing he did was to specifically note this was not ‘a message’, thus heading off the media’s games, before going on to explain with open frankness exactly why he’d done it.

We’ve seen the same with Slot making it overtly clear when he’s joking while also still giving interesting, full and thoughtful answers that extend way beyond the standard platitudes.

Of course, the spin is still that he was angry and fuming. Amorim will face the same. But if Amorim (and Slot, because This Is Also Liverpool Football Club We’re Talking About) can maintain his current dignified clarity then he really does have a better chance of delivering meaningful change to Manchester United than anyone else in the last 11 years.