Key Ineos figure Omar Berrada has insisted that there are “many reasons” why Ruben Amorim’s ill-fated reign at Old Trafford backfired for Manchester United.
Ruben Amorim arrived as Manchester United manager during the 2024-25 Premier League campaign after Ineos sacked Erik ten Hag from his head coach role.
The 41-year-old Portuguese coach left his native homeland in 2024 after his success with Sporting CP and took charge of the Red Devils for a 14-month reign.
Amorim’s reign as Man Utd head coach would end back in January after the former Sporting CP head coach’s relationship with Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s regime fractured.
Ruben Amorim has been hired by AC Milan: How do you think he will fare?
Let us know your predictions! Man Utd face AC Milan in pre-season 👀
Omar Berrada pinpoints the ‘very rigid’ mistake that AC Milan boss Ruben Amorim made at Man Utd
Ruben Amorim left his role as Manchester United manager during the 2025-26 Premier League season and was later replaced by Red Devils legend Michael Carrick.
Omar Berrada had been a key backer of former Red Devils boss Amorim in becoming the sixth permanent head coach at United since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.
Speaking at the FT Weekend Festival in New York last week, he said: “Again, Ruben, I think, has done many good things that contribute to the success we’ve had this season just past.
“He helped raise the standard in the dressing room. He participated in the recruitment of the four players that we signed over the summer, [who] had a very positive impact on the performance of the team.”
Berrada, who was appointed as chief executive officer at United in 2024, admitted that Amorim might have spent too much time trying to show his “ideas” worked.
“I think maybe where he got stuck is the size of the club — and a little bit on the reflection I made — the scrutiny of your ideas and decisions is so constant that perhaps he struggled managing that […],” he added, as per The Athletic.
“Not that it was too big for him, but he [may have] cornered himself in a position where he wanted to stick in a very rigid manner to his ideas because he wanted to show everybody that it’s going to work.
“And in the context of the volatility of emotions you get by being part of Manchester United, when you lose two or three games in a row, then it’s the end [of] the world. So I think that was very hard to manage.”
Michael Carrick now has more wins than Ruben Amorim this season in seven fewer games! What does this tell you…?
Omar Berrada on why Ruben Amorim was handpicked to replace Erik ten Hag at Man Utd
Amorim had been tipped as one of the most promising coaches in world football after the former Man Utd manager’s success at Sporting CP.
However, the former Sporting boss struggled to replicate his ideas in English football, despite what Berrada and Co saw in him during his initial appointment.
“I look back at the process of the appointment, I think the rationale for choosing him was sound,” Berrada explained.
“He was a coach [who] had been very successful, in Portugal, [at] Sporting Lisbon.
“He was young, he was dynamic.
“He had a way of explaining his football knowledge and ideas that was very clear. We felt he was able to relate and communicate with the players and [the] dressing room.
“Off the back of lots of changes of coaches in the last 10 years, we really wanted to give Ruben time to develop his ideas, his concepts and give him the freedom on the training pitch to be able to implement his ideas.”
Amorim made his return to management this month after AC Milan appointed the former Sporting and Man Utd head coach as a replacement for Massimiliano Allegri.
Receive a digest of our best United content each week direct to your mailbox
