ATLANTA, Georgia — The narrative around Manchester United‘s summer tour of the U.S. has been largely positive. But as Ruben Amorim boarded a flight back to Manchester from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport late on Sunday night, he did so with the feeling that the whole club — players, staff and fans — had been handed a healthy dose of reality.
After comfortable wins over West Ham in New Jersey and Bournemouth in Chicago, the 2-2 draw with Everton at Atlanta Falcons’ Mercedes-Benz Stadium exposed some familiar problems. Bruno Fernandes said afterwards that parts of the performance had been “lazy” and although Amorim didn’t wholeheartedly agree, he didn’t shut down his captain, either.
“I think we struggled today a little bit,” said Amorim. “The feeling of not performing like we’re supposed to do, but it was OK. I think it’s the perfect feeling to go back to Carrington. We are going with the feeling that we need to do a lot of things [better].”
Amorim views himself as a natural optimist. However, he’s perfectly placed to understand the size of the challenge in taking United from their worst season in more than 50 years to something resembling a successful campaign.
The general message from Amorim and his players has been that getting back into Europe is the aim. Even that would require bridging a gap of more than 20 points.
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After a miserable eight months since his appointment as Erik ten Hag’s successor, Amorim has tried as much as possible to paint this summer as a fresh start. It was important for the United head coach to get backing from the board to axe Alejandro Garnacho, Jadon Sancho, Antony and Tyrell Malacia from the trip to America and show the squad that only players fully committed will be welcome in the group.
Everything in the U.S. has been about putting the team first, with new rules in place to encourage players to spend more time together. Larger, circular tables were ordered for the team dining room at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in central Chicago to avoid small cliques sitting together.
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Part of the reason Amorim became so disillusioned with Marcus Rashford (who’s since joined Barcelona on loan) was because of his tendency to keep one close friend rather than fully involve himself in the squad. Amorim’s idea is that better relationships off the field creates better connections on it.
In Chicago, players were given the freedom to take walks around the Magnificent Mile in the evenings after training. Preseason tours usually involve double training sessions — one in the morning and one in the afternoon — but Amorim was keen to keep most afternoons free to allow more time for team bonding. Staff were delighted that on one night off, the entire team decided to take a trip to TAO Asian Bistro together, unprompted, rather than go their separate ways.
Amorim insists on a certain level of discipline within the squad, but he’s gone out of his way to ensure his players don’t feel like they’re being treated like children. It’s borne out of his experiences as a player at Benfica and Braga, where he felt an “iron fist” style of management was counterproductive to players expressing themselves on the pitch. Ten Hag was a stickler for timings and players became fed up with his micro-management. Amorim is more relaxed about things — like what time they have to be down for breakfast — but he won’t accept lateness when they’re catching the bus to training.
Amorim and his staff were keen for players to return to preseason fitter than last season and asked them to follow tailored programmes during their holidays. At their U.S. base (also known as Chicago Fire’s training ground), each member of the squad was fitted with GPS trackers to monitor the intensity of sessions. Anyone falling below the desired standard is called out in front of the group.
“If you don’t train in the right way, I have footage to show you,” said Amorim in a 30-minute sit-down interview with English reporters. “And I show you in front of everybody.”
Amorim is hoping that the dressing room — with the help of a new six-man leadership team — will eventually begin policing itself.
There was a feeling last season that Bruno Fernandes would often be left shouldering the responsibility on his own. This season, he will have help from Harry Maguire, Diogo Dalot, Lisandro Martínez, Noussair Mazraoui and Tom Heaton — players chosen specifically to ensure every corner of the squad is represented. Small issues will be dealt with by the group; only bigger problems will make it to Amorim’s desk.
“There are some things that in the last year I had to deal with,” said Amorim. “I said to them this year, you deal with that. Small issues are with you guys. You are responsible.”
Despite delegating some responsibilities, Amorim has made it very clear that he’s in charge of training. He keeps his distance during the warm-up, and leaves set pieces to his assistant Carlos Fernandes. There’s been more emphasis placed on gym work — sessions can be up to an hour long — after staff noticed United players struggling in one-on-one duels last season.
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One exercise, led by first-team strength and power coach Michael Clegg, involves doing pulls-ups at timed intervals. Players are expected to achieve eight or nine before failure. On the grass, running drills are disguised as shooting practice to keep it fun.
Meanwhile, Amorim leads the tactical walk-throughs. Club media are not allowed to film, as players are physically moved to show them where they should be during different phases of play.
“I think we will reach a point, hopefully, where we can almost play with our eyes closed,” said Dalot. “We know where everybody is going to be on the pitch.”
After criticism from players about how the 2023 U.S. tour was set up, club bosses including COO Collette Roche have changed the way preseason trips are organised. Commercial work has been scaled back and effort has been made to reduce travel and keep the squad in one place for as long as possible.
“Everything’s honestly been world-class,” said Luke Shaw when asked about United’s preseason base in Chicago. “We had that conversation before we came over here. We had a meeting and [the club] just said we’ve tried to put everything in place to make sure that we have the right facilities and the right things around the team to help everything we can to prepare us for the season.”
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But for all the positivity around United’s tour, Amorim has been keen not to get ahead of himself. He knows better than anyone that any optimism will disappear if the first five games of the Premier League season — three of them against Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea — do not go well.
Much of the talk in the U.S. — from players and staff — has been about a reset. A fresh start and a clean slate. But at one fan engagement event at the Guinness Open Gate Brewery in Chicago, it was left to Joshua Zirkzee to sum up United’s situation.
Asked to talk about what fans can expect this season as United look to bounce back from a disastrous 12 months, he took a second before delivering an answer most supporters would agree with. “They would rather see some actions on the pitch,” said the Dutch winger.
How successful this summer has truly been will only become apparent when Arsenal visit Old Trafford on Aug. 17.
