Europa Final loss made me fear for my job, says Amorim as Portuguese wondered if it was ‘meant to be’ at United.
Ruben Amorim admits Europa final defeat made him fear for his job.
According to Ruben Amorim, one of the things that made him worry he wouldn’t be able to stay at Manchester United for a full year was the Europa League final loss to Tottenham.
The head coach acknowledged on Saturday that he has frequently questioned if the position he was assigned to a year ago was “meant to be” for him. Since agreeing to a two-and-a-half-year contract, he has lost 19 of his 52 games and led United to their lowest Premier League ranking of 15th last season. The question of whether the Portuguese had been concerned about finishing his 12-month term in command was posed.
“To lose so many games, that was so hard for me,” he said, “because this is Manchester United. Putting all the attention on the Europa League and not winning, that was massive. So I had some moments where I struggled a lot, and I was thinking: ‘Maybe it’s not meant to be.’ Today is the opposite … Today I feel that it was the best decision in my life [to join], and I want to be here.”
“When I started thinking about the system, nobody was playing 3-4-3, so I can understand how to rotate players,” he said.
“Even in the way we buy players, if you have a clear idea how to play, it’s easy for you to [say]: ‘This is the guy that I want.’ And that can help you. When [today] is 4-3-3 and tomorrow is a 4-4-2, it’s harder to make the characteristics right for the players, so I try to use all this knowledge to search for the right players.”
Amorim was asked whether he would like to sign a midfielder in January. “A lot of things can happen. We have the World Cup, some players who are not playing, they will ask to leave, so I have to manage everything,” he said. “And then we want to bring players that we can see have a big future in Manchester United.
“We are not just buying one guy because we feel in December that we need this kind of player now. But we think about how we can improve the team and in January we can [maybe] do something.”