Sir Jim Ratcliffe has backed Ruben Amorim to succeed at Manchester United despite the difficult start the Portuguese head coach has had at Old Trafford.
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Sir Jim Ratcliffe has backed Ruben Amorim to succeed at Manchester United
(Image: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images.)
Sir Jim Ratcliffe has praised Ruben Amorim for doing a "fantastic job" at Manchester United and backed the head coach to get things right at Old Trafford.
Ratcliffe appointed the 40-year-old in November to replace Erik ten Hag but he has had a difficult start with just 10 wins in his first 26 games. Despite that, Ratcliffe has offered his backing to Amorim and insists the future is bright with the Portuguese now in charge of the team.
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Amorim replaced Ten Hag after the Dutchman was sacked following a disappointing start to the season, with Ratcliffe admitting the decision to keep him after winning the FA Cup had been an "emotional" one.
There has been little improvement under Amorim but he is trying to bring a new system and style of play to a squad ill-suited to his demands and is now dealing with a major injury crisis, and Ratcliffe is confident things will come right.
“I think he’s done a great job in the circumstances, frankly, with the squad that he’s had available,” Ratcliffe said in an interview with The Times and Telegraph. “The fact he came in mid-season.
“Everybody expects miracles overnight. It’s not the way, not real life in my view. I mean, you saw the performance yesterday (against Arsenal). It was, I thought, a really impressive performance. They could not have worked harder. They couldn’t have been more committed.
“And if you looked at the names on the bench, there weren’t many you recognised, were there? Half the squad’s missing for Ruben. If you look at the top eight players in terms of salaries in Manchester United, 50 per cent of those are not available to Ruben. You’ve got Mason Mount, you’ve got Luke Shaw, Marcus Rashford has gone, and Jadon Sancho (on loan at Chelsea).
“And he’s got a bunch of other injuries as you know, so I think he’s done a fantastic job.”
Amorim has been critical of the team he is in charge of, including calling it possibly the worst United side in history, something Ratcliffe has laughed off after spending more than £200million on new players in the summer.
“I think coaches are emotional and Ruben’s no exception to that," he said. "And he’s a young coach. And he’s not perfect. You know, he’s not a guy who … he’s got to be good on the stage, but we want him to be good on the grass. And part of that is life on the stage, isn’t it?"
Ratcliffe also spoke about the relationship the two of them have and when asked if Amorim was going to be successful, offered some strong backing.
“Yeah I do, honestly,” he said. “I really, really like Ruben. He’s a very thoughtful guy. Every time I go to the training ground, I speak to Ruben. I sit down and have a cup of coffee with him and tell him where it’s going wrong, and he tells me to f**k off. I like him."
Ratcliffe came close to sacking Ten Hag at the end of last season but ended up keeping the former Ajax boss after he oversaw victory over Manchester City at Wembley in the FA Cup final.
He was then sacked a few months later, while sporting director Dan Ashworth was appointed and then dismissed in the space of five months at a cost of £4.1million. Ratcliffe called those decisions "mistakes".
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“I mean, the Erik thing is slightly mitigating," he said. "There was quite a lot of debate about that at the time. It wasn’t just the FA Cup final. The fans were clearly of the view that we’d like to stick with him and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, they were both mistakes. I don’t think we can say much more than that.
“It’s a journey and there’s a lot of decisions that we have to make over the course of that and we’re not going to get them all right. I don’t think in the future we’ll get them all right either because we’re not perfect.”