Green shoots for Man Utd or another false dawn?

BBC News

04-08-2025

Manchester United have been so underwhelming, so erratic and talked so many good games over the past decade without delivering, it is sensible to watch closely to see if any green shoots of recovery continue to grow before passing judgement.Ruben Amorim is wise to this.He knows his searingly honest appraisal of United and his welcome openness in outlining how he is trying to improve things will count for absolutely nothing if they lose to Arsenal at Old Trafford in their Premier League season opener on 17 August.He also knows United tend to attract extreme reactions, and said as much after Sunday's 2-2 draw against Everton in Atlanta confirmed his side as winners of the four-team Premier League Summer Series."It's normal in our club," he said. "If you play well, they will say we play really well, if it's on the opposite side, it's the same thing."After four minutes of speaking to the press - not even a sixth of the time he spent with travelling UK journalists in Chicago on Friday - he was gone, choosing instead to watch the non-starting members of his squad - Joshua Zirkzee, Noussair Mazraoui, Andre Onana and Lisandro Martinez were not involved at any point - do a full training session on the Mercedes-Benz Stadium pitch.Woe betide anyone who didn't meet Amorim's standards.
It is a big part of Amorim's coaching strategy to treat his players like adults. This seems sensible, although this is football we are talking about and even in Sir Alex Ferguson's day one player - who is still close to the club - turned up for a European trip with all his house keys, having locked the door with the rest of his family still inside, and had to sheepishly ask another employee to go back and let them out.The sight of United players wandering round Chicago after training - either for a coffee, a bite to eat or a browse through the very expensive shops that make up the 'magnificent mile', without being accompanied by security, suggested a healthy dose of normality, which, as Amorim makes clear, comes with responsibility.Players posed for numerous selfies - plenty of fans asked and no-one refused - when they were out and about around the team hotel. Letting the dressing room run the dressing room served Ferguson well.It has made for a more relaxed environment. This is a contrast to the prescriptive approach of Erik ten Hag, who punished players if they were late for meetings.That is not to say punishments don't exist in Amorim's world.Defeat in the small-sided games at the end of training means having to pack away the training equipment. And in his revealing chat on Friday, Amorim said poor performance in training is identified and shown to the entire group rather than the individual concerned being singled out for a quiet word.There are other subtleties too. Training on day one was at 8am to allow a transition through a six-hour time zone swap, in the knowledge Amorim will have his squad back together at Carrington on Wednesday before Saturday lunchtime's friendly with Fiorentina - disruption caused by a change in time zones should be easier.It means Amorim was getting up even earlier to do his morning exercise, a run and weights, before the players arrived.Training itself consisted of more intense gym work, lasting up to an hour, and walking through game scenarios - which Amorim takes and club media are not allowed to film. Information is kept to key points rather than risk overload, where no messages get through. It is the general framework Amorim is trying to create. The players, he feels, should have the intelligence to make decisions themselves in key moments.This means not all the key work takes place on the pitches. Amorim's assistant Carlos Fernandes does the set-pieces and drill work. The previous tradition of double sessions to build fitness have been ditched.In addition, some of the running being asked of the players has been disguised. Two shooting drill stations were created at training but the gap between them was widened so more energy was expended to get between the two.
On the surface, all this seems positive. Certainly, reports from inside the club say the sports science team were delighted with the numbers from the early training sessions after Amorim's players returned for the start of pre-season on 7 July.This, they reasoned, suggested the players had stuck to a pretty detailed and strict fitness programme to work on during their time off.This is Manchester United, so there were some commercial appearances, but they have reduced from previous tours. In fact, potentially the most significant commercial event as far as the club was concerned had no player involvement at all as Lord Coe, chair designate of the Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC) for the Old Trafford regeneration project, was part of a delegation who addressed an audience of Wall Street investment banks and US financiers in New York to try to generate interest in helping to fund the planned £2bn new stadium project.The fact neither Coe nor chief operating officer Collette Roche, who spoke at length to travelling media about the stadium plans in Los Angeles 12 months earlier, met the press this time suggests strongly nothing significant has changed and the feeling is growing United will not meet an initial five-year timeline minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe spoke of in March.That is not Amorim's concern, of course.He must deliver on the pitch. And to that end, United did look much better than last season.It was obvious the much-discussed three-man defence splits when Amorim's team have the ball so, when the build-up begins, the right and left-sided defenders operate as normal central defenders with the middle man of the three - Matthijs de Ligt is in pole position for that role - moves into midfield alongside the deeper of the two chosen for those jobs.Matheus Cunha definitely brings more invention to Amorim's attack and Amad Diallo, if selected, is a massive danger offensively at right wing-back, even if questions are asked defensively.It is clear Amorim feels he can find an upgrade on Rasmus Hojlund, even if many would argue a better use of the funds United do have would be to find someone who can bring physicality and energy to midfield. Watching the industry of Bournemouth's Alex Scott emphasises it is a significant weakness in Amorim's squad.Nevertheless, as tours go, this has been a fairly calm one. Amorim's group of players, in general, seem happy enough and the positive spirit needed for any team to be successful does exist.Yet the reality of modern football is that everything in seen through, and judged by, the prism of results.The walk through might be an advancement. If United win it will be seen that way. If they lose it will be written off as a terrible idea - even though it is the exactly the same process.Conceding the winning goal to Tottenham in the Europa League final through a flick off Brennan Johnson - that took a deflection at close range off Luke Shaw and then squeezed in at the corner despite Onana's desperate attempt to keep it out - has nothing to do with training and everything to do with the small margins managers across the league talk about.This does seem to be a better United. Amorim is getting his ideas across.But Arsenal's upcoming visit to Old Trafford and the 37 Premier Leagues games afterwards will decide whether the progress is real or if pre-season 2025 was just another false dawn.