Ruben Amorim has insisted on being his own man from day one as Manchester United manager and that job was made easier for him because Erik ten Hag left at such a sour point.
Erik ten Hag had broken the club’s trophy drought and followed it up with a memorable FA Cup final win over Manchester City but by the time he left, his position had long become untenable.
Ruben Amorim, on the other hand, arrived as a breath of fresh air with his charisma and clear-mindedness but on-pitch results have been underwhelming, to say the least.
However, his latest message has seen him clearly separate himself from Ten Hag in a way that annoyed Man Utd fans to no end.
Ruben Amorim’s Erik ten Hag contrast
For all his faults at the club, nobody could say Ten Hag didn’t do two things – bring through youngsters at the club who can form the spine and break the trophy drought.
However, by the end of his time at Old Trafford, one of those was becoming a grating thing for the fans to hear and there are no prizes to guess which it was.
Ten Hag’s comments which effectively coined the last season a success because they won the FA Cup, and his talking about it every chance became a stick to beat him with.
Ruben Amorim has now separated himself from those comments as clearly as he possibly could.
He said: “I cannot focus just on saving the season with the momentum of the FA Cup. That’s not the way I see football, it’s not the way I see Manchester United.
“It’s everything, it’s the performance, the result. I’m not thinking about the end of the season now.”
Ruben Amorim’s take is the right one
Nobody would deny that the FA Cup win last season is among the most memorable moments for the fans post-Sir Alex Ferguson.
Having said that, a win in a knockout competition cannot be used as a curtain to hide festering issues related to consistency and identity.
That is the fine line Ten Hag had skipped far beyond, using the two cups as a shield from criticism.
Amorim has stuck to his guns despite the underwhelming results so far, betting on it eventually paying off for more sustained excellence rather than putting a temporary plaster on a wound in the form of a cup win.
Short-term pain for long-term gain. It still might not produce perfect results, but United are at least finally getting the process right.
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