RUBEN AMORIM insists he will have the final say on all transfer comings and goings at Man Utd.
The new manager held his first press conference today – and wasted no time in stamping his authority on the club.
Amorim, 39, replaces Erik ten Hag as manager appointed by part owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his new senior management team of Omar Berrada, Sir David Brailsford, Dan Ashworth and Jason Wilcox.
The board have overseen a calamitous summer of bungling in their dealings with former boss Ten Hag and with some questionable recruitment.
For example they lumbered Ten Hag with frontman flop Joshua Zirkzee believing he was a good investment when the former boss did not ask for him.
But the new man says that he won’t be a pushover.
Former Sporting Lisbon coach Amorim revealed: “The final word should be the manager’s.
“Not just because it’s your right but your responsibility.
“Because in the end, the results are down to me.
“I have a great responsibility when we choose players because this is something that should be done this way.
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“I’m the manager, the head coach, so I have to choose the players.”
Amorim insisted the senior management team will have to help him improve the club’s transfer activity but said the buck stops at his desk.
He said: “Everybody has to work together and for that we have to improve the process on recruitment, the data, the profile of players we want, but I have to have a strong position on that because I am the coach, I know how to play.”
The new head coach conducted his first press conference as United boss at The Carrington Training Ground.
He was full of confidence about how he can be different to David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ten Hag in getting the club right back to where they were under Sir Alex Ferguson.
He said: “You had here different type of coaches.
“So the guys who won everything like Van Gaal and Mourinho, you had new ones who knew the club inside out like Solskjaer, and one of the best that there will ever be outside the five strongest leagues was Ten Hag.
“You have different type of coaches, the same result. We will try to do it our way, the Ineos way, and my way.”
The Portuguese is looking forward to the challenge ahead and implementing his philosophy on the team and club as a whole.
But the former Sporting Lisbon chief has warned the Old Trafford faithful not to expect him to perform miracles straight away.
He said: “It’s Manchester United, you feel the weight of history despite the last few years and you want to be part of it.
“The responsibility is enormous. It will be difficult.
“There will be very difficult moments, but I really believe we will succeed.”
Amorim is ready for all the extra attention and scrutiny which comes with the job.
He said: “It’s a different world here. There’s a lot to do.
“You’re not just a coach. It’s different, but I’m prepared.”
Amorim is United’s SIXTH permanent manager since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in May 2013.
His successors have all FAILED to win the Premier League, although there has been a sprinkling of FA, Europa League and League Cup success.
And Amorim is confident he can end the club’s long wait to return to the summit of the English top flight.
He said: “Call me naive. But I truly believe I am the right guy in the right moment.
“I could be wrong but the world still will turn [and] the sun will rise again, I don’t worry about that.
“I truly believe I’m the right guy for this job.
“In two years you will understand if I am the right man to be in this process.
“In two years you can understand if you want to continue on this path or you want to change.
“I know if you are at Manchester United you have to win games, so I will not tell you I need a lot of time.”
By Charlie Wyett
RUBEN AMORIM would have preferred to leave Lisbon in a blaze of glory after winning a third Primeira Liga title.
Yet football does not work like that. And in what was surely his final game before taking charge of Manchester United, Amorim prepared to say his goodbyes at a half-empty Estadio Jose Alvalade in a League Cup quarter-final against Nacional.
Sporting won 3-1 thanks to second-half goals by captain Morten Hjulmand and Viktor Gyokeres, who scored two.
Luis Esteves pulled back for Madeira-based Nacional.
The stadium will be a good deal more lively on Tuesday when Manchester City are here for a Champions League match — although Amorim should by then have his feet firmly under his desk at Old Trafford.
Liverpool and Aston Villa were both interested in Europe’s most sought-after coach. Even City could have been a possible destination post-Pep Guardiola.
Yet the United job is one Amorim, 39, could not turn down — even if not everyone saw it that way at Sporting last night.
There is clearly a huge split in the Portuguese club’s fan base over their coach leaving at this stage of the season with many believing he should have seen the job through.
Yet Amorim, along with the three-man coaching team who are expected to follow him, leaves a club in a much better state than when he arrived here in 2020.
Inside the stadium, there was applause — albeit muted — when his name was read out before the game along with the line-ups.
And there did not appear to be any jeers when Amorim shuffled out from the tunnel awkwardly towards the dugout.
So, while his departure is hard to take for some, none of the fans will forget his legacy.
This is a club which is back as the dominant force in Portugal. Even this term, Sporting have won their first nine league games, scoring 30 goals and conceding just two.
They are also eighth in the Champions League table, which is one hell of an effort.
In contrast, Lisbon was not exactly hit by League Cup fever last night.
Amorim made lots of changes, which saw Sporting’s star man Gyokeres, the former Coventry striker, start on the bench.
There was, however, a first appearance in six weeks for former Tottenham winger Marcus Edwards.
He is certainly one player who has been transformed by Amorim since arriving at the club from Vitoria in 2022 and will be sorry to see the coach leave.
While he changed his team, Amorim stuck with his tried and trusted formation of a back three.
It will certainly be something Manchester United’s fans will have to get used to over the coming months.
But looking at the Premier League table, none of them will be complaining about the change.
