What Ruben Amorim sees on the training ground and why he dropped Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho in biggest move of Man United reign
- We reveal how Ruben Amorim blends data, drones and a personal touch to run the rule over his squad - and the demands he has placed on his players
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A drone was hovering over Carrington again when the Manchester United players got back to work on Monday morning, monitoring their every move on the training ground and transmitting data to Ruben Amorim and his coaching staff.
Shielded behind the £250,000 privacy wall installed by Amorim’s predecessor Erik ten Hag, the squad’s return to training after that most dramatic of comebacks in the Manchester derby at the Etihad on Sunday was well observed.
The GPS vests they are wearing provided another raft of stats for Amorim’s team of analysts led by Eduardo Rosalino, one of the backroom team he brought with him from Sporting Lisbon, to pore over.
There’s no hiding place for footballers these days. Not like back in the year 2000 when Bolton striker Ian Marshall, a notoriously reluctant trainer, used to pull the wool over the eyes of manager Sam Allardyce by taking a heart monitor home to Leicester and putting it on his dog.
Nothing is left to chance now: weight, diet, nutrition, recovery. The facts speak for themselves.
Perhaps above all, Amorim will trust his eyes and ears. Sir Alex Ferguson used to rely on his intuition when it came to assessing players and their moods, and United’s new head coach seems to be a similar breed.
Ruben Amorim omitted Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho from his squad on Sunday
Amorim is watching everything his players do with the help of drones on the training pitch
Amorim's bold call paid off as Amad Diallo secured a dramatic late win against Man City
Only recently, he spoke about Manuel Ugarte – a player he knows from Sporting Lisbon – needing longer to rest than Bruno Fernandes. Others will need to be monitored on a case-by-case basis to make sure they don’t enter the red zone.
Amorim is happiest out there on the grass among his players and the cut and thrust of a training session. It’s only eight years since he retired as a player. One of the reasons United hired the 39-year-old was his ability to form a better connection with the players than Ten Hag.
He understands the modern footballer. Amorim chuckled recently when he pointed out that players can’t concentrate on a tactical video for more than 12 minutes.
He doesn’t like to speak to them straight after a game and is known to keep his half-time team talk as short as possible too.
But very little will have escaped the attention of the new coaching staff during their first few weeks in the job, especially when United have had so many games and so few training sessions to get their ideas across.
Amorim will have shared his observations at length with his team – assistant Carlos Fernandes, coaches Adelio Candido and Emanuel Ferro, goalkeeper coach Jorge Vital, and performance specialist Paulo Barreira – and listened to their feedback.
It’s under these circumstances that he will have decided to axe Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho from his matchday squad for the Manchester derby.
It was a bold call after seven games in charge – even more so because United made the short trip to the Etihad having suffered back-to-back Premier League defeats – but one that Amorim felt he had to make.
Amorim mentioned how his players dress after Rashford was seen dripping in bling in New York during the November international break
Amorim also spoke about the way his players interact with each other, as he hinted that Rashford have not been giving off good vibes
Diogo Dalot admitted United's players need to be ready to suffer if they want to succeed
The bare minimum he asks of his players is effort; ‘run like mad dogs’ he said earlier this month. Rashford and Garnacho couldn’t even give him that, it seems.
Whereas Ten Hag sent his squad on a punishment run after they failed him in his second game at Brentford, Amorim preferred to call out two of his biggest names. Rashford the club’s second-highest earner and Garnacho, until recently seen as one of the few untouchables in a squad of players who are practically all for sale.
Defender Diogo Dalot summed up the new order under Amorim following United’s 2-1 victory over City after Amad Diallo won a penalty converted by Bruno Fernandes and then scored a late winner.
‘The message was clear from the beginning: if you want to succeed and thrive, you have to work hard and suffer,’ said Dalot. ‘If you’re ready to do that with us, we’re going to be a good team. If you’re not, there’s no space for you.’
When Amorim spoke about Rashford and Garnacho improving ‘standards outside the pitch’, it was widely interpreted as lifestyle – particularly given the ongoing concerns over Rashford in that regard.
His reference to how the players dress conjured up the image of Rashford dripping in bling courtside at Madison Square Garden in New York last month when other players had headed back early during the international break to start work under the new boss.
It might just as easily be a dress-code issue around the club, something Garnacho has been known to breach on occasions, but it's understood that Amorim's comment was a generic one that stressed the importance of giving a good impression.
His complaint about how the two players engage with team-mates was seen as a reference to their body language. Neither has been giving off a good vibe.
Amorim has left the door open for Rashford and Garnacho to return, and Gary Neville called on the pair to take the axing in the right way and proving they have a future at United
‘He's given us emphatic clues to what has happened in the last few days, that they've been moping and not doing their bit around the training ground,’ said former United captain Gary Neville on Sky Sports.
‘Why has Ruben Amorim, a young coach worked with two young players for two weeks and said, “I don't want you in my matchday squad”? We've seen Rashford and Garnacho not chase back. Amad Diallo runs around that pitch like it hurts.
‘Leaving Rashford and Garnacho out, he will feel so empowered.’
Crucially, Amorim has made sure to leave the door open in his comments on Sunday. This is a new week, he said, a new opportunity and it is up to the players to take it.
He built a reputation as a great man-manager at Sporting and this is a stern early test of his skills. Amorim has drawn a line in the sand and the club have to back him because this group of players have had it their own way for too long.
Perhaps most worrying of all was an admission that he is powerless to stop one of them from leaking his lineups after United’s team for the derby once again got out. It’s hard to imagine Ferguson being quite so phlegmatic about such a closely-guarded secret.
‘I think it's impossible to fix nowadays because you have a lot of people in the club, the players talk with agents,’ said Amorim.
‘You can talk with friends, so it's hard to know. It's not a good thing but let's move on and go to the next one and see if they find the next starting XI.’
Diallo's winner came just two minutes after he had equalised at the end of a poor game
Garnacho’s brother Roberto has denied being the source on social media, and United insiders insist it was not a factor in his exclusion from the squad.
But it’s not a good look at a time when Amorim is trying to foster the kind of unity and mind-set that helped United come back to beat City.
‘The last couple of years we’ve had some crazy games like this, fighting until the end and I think that’s the DNA of this club,’ added Dalot. ‘You could feel the energy between us and it was really good.
‘I’ve played here a couple of times since I’ve arrived. It was probably the first time that emotionally we were in control. We felt we could win the game at any moment. It was the first time for me personally, that I felt capable of doing that, so that shows some progress.’
