WHEN Ruben Amorim arrives in Manchester, he has got a LOT of mess to sweep up in a short space of time.
I really like Amorim — he is an excellent coach and everything about him is world class, even the way he has conducted himself in leaving Sporting Lisbon.
But he has a heck of a job.
I am not saying these United boys are not fit but they will be nowhere near fit enough for Amorim. His Sporting teams run their arses off.
There are going to be a lot of ups and downs between now and January 1 and then — oh my God — is he going to have to come out with a broom and sweep the lot.
If you’re walking into that s**tshow with that ball of yarn to untangle, where do you begin? Good luck with that, Ruben.
You’ve got to get rules in place, because sacked Erik ten Hag apparently tried to lead that club like a dictator and, from what I have heard, the Carrington training base is completely divided as a result.
The expectation is going to be high because United have just spent over £10million getting you and your coaching team over from Portugal.
You’re going to have your own fitness and nutrition guys in.
Can these players do what you want them to do? Are they fit enough? Probably not.
FOOTBALL FREE BETS AND SIGN UP DEALS
You’re going to have to tweak everything from gym work to the training routines and during that period you will have a few players dropping like flies because of it.
I am glad United got Amorim sorted quickly. Had they not, they would have gone down the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer route again with Ruud van Nistelrooy.
The new manager ‘bounce’ and 5-2 thrashing of Leicester in the Carabao Cup was always going to happen. It is no coincidence.
Ten Hag would have been watching, thinking ‘How f***ing frustrating is this?’ even if he did deserve to lose his job.
Bruno Fernandes scoring his first goals of the season and Casemiro suddenly firing in screamers with an Old Trafford hero like Van Nistelrooy on the sidelines.
But a club legend taking over, playing a seriously poor Leicester team in a cup, with a new manager on the way… that was always going to be the case.
It is like when you’ve been with your partner for a long time.
You get dumped, so you go to the gym to get in shape to get someone new. It never lasts.
And make no mistake, after this weird ‘new-manager bounce’ phase, reality would have hit them again, because you cannot bulls**t it over the course of a season.
They’re 14th in the Premier League for a reason.
With the games they have coming up after a free hit against Chelsea on Sunday — PAOK and Bodo/Glimt in the Europa League and Leicester, Ipswich and Everton in the Prem — suddenly United could have picked up some points and the board would think ‘Why not Ruud?’
But that would just be bulls**ting it again until the next tough run heading into December with Arsenal, Manchester City and Spurs in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals.
I remember when Marco Silva was sacked at Watford and Javi Gracia came in and we went on a real run.
Why? Partly because we were a really fit team and that paved the way for a clean transition. It is a really underestimated part of it.
The person who will come out of this the best? Ruud. He will have a nice pay packet.
His stock will rise and he won’t be tarnished with Ten Hag’s tenure.
Even if United lose 7-0 to Chelsea, Ruud can say: "It’s not my fault. The players were distracted by Ten Hag going and the new manager."
My one bit of advice to Ruben? Don’t keep Ruud on. You want to clear the decks once you are there, with only your people around you.
Only then can you figure out what the problems are — and how to solve them.
VIN SNUB NOT ABOUT RACE
YOU look up ‘Ballon d’Or’ right now and the first name that comes up is: Vinicius Jr.
A lot has been made of him not turning up to the award ceremony after losing out to Rodri. Was it petulant? Yes. Embarrassing? It depends how you look at it.
Vinicius has been exceptional this year, winning LaLiga and the Champions League, but he didn’t do well for Brazil, and that is what has cost him.
You look at previous winners, like Lionel Messi last year — he was playing for Inter Miami but won the World Cup for Argentina.
That’s what clinches a Ballon d’Or, it seems.
Rodri did the same with Spain at the Euros.
Had England beaten them in the final, it probably would have gone to Jude Bellingham.
In my opinion, Vinicius has had the wrong people in his ear telling him he was a cert to win it and it would be unanimous and, I imagine, that has got to him.
He has got caught up in it thinking he is going to be elevated to superstar status.
I don’t think we should be making this a race issue, which is what is perhaps being implied by his cryptic tweets in the aftermath.
To think you’re going to win it, and then you don’t, it must take a lot out of you, especially after a bad weekend where his Real Madrid side have just been battered by Barcelona in El Clasico.
For what it’s worth, I think he should have won the Ballon d’Or.
Should he have gone to the award ceremony? Probably, but let’s not pile in on him too much.