The pre-season at Manchester United in 2025/26 is as much about fixing the problems off the pitch as it is about improving on it.
Ruben Amorim is leading a cultural reset at Man Utd, no mean feat considering the size of the club, and it can’t be achieved by just results on the pitch.
What happens off the pitch directly influences results on it, and the newest hire by the club is aiding Amorim in improving the atmosphere around the club.
Luke Shaw has praised the Man Utd dressing room for a fresh vibe, and recent reports suggest that United’s new hire has played a role in it.
Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim reacts during the Premier League Summer Series match between Manchester United and Everton AFC on August 3rd, 2025
Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Acacio Valentim making a mark at Man Utd
The Portuguese flavour at Old Trafford got another boost over the off-season when Man Utd hired Acacio Valentim to lead the team operations.
Valentim joined the group of six coaches/analysts brought along by Amorim, and even though he hadn’t worked with Amorim directly before, he came with a positive pedigree from Portugal.
He was replacing a long-serving member of the staff, Jackie Kay, who spent 10 years in that role, in addition to being at the club for 30 years.
However, as per The Athletic, Valentim is already making a mark at United, with his communication and openness going down well with the team.
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The report states that Valentim is “getting on well” with people across the club, and his communication skills have been a net positive.
🚨 BREAKING:
Acácio Valentim is the new operations manager for Manchester United. He has been in office since July 1, with the responsibility of dealing with the internal organisation and logistics related to the squad, in direct contact with Ruben Amorim. #MUFC [@PedroGMorais] pic.twitter.com/SYn13vePSF
— mufc2 (@mufcMPB2_) July 8, 2025
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He has been the one holding the substitution boards during pre-season friendly games so far, which indicates that he is already in the inner circle of Amorim’s team and becoming ever closer to the squad as well.
Ruben Amorim is using Sir Dave Brailsford’s philosophy
United’s structure off the pitch has seen some wholesale changes, with long-serving staff making way for a new era in a bittersweet transformation.
Decisions like this to add Valentim to the staff instead of Jackie Kay aren’t an indictment of the ability of the personnel who have just left.
Rather, it just borrows from Sir Dave Brailsford’s “Marginal Gains” philosophy, where small changes to bring freshness to each department will eventually result in a much-needed holistic cultural reset.
The fact that the new hires are going down well with the club, and the team is clearly feeling in a better place as a whole, means that the changes are working.
It goes without saying that passing a definitive judgement is impossible until the team plays a few competitive games, but the mood around United has rarely been better.