5 things we learned from Ruben Amorim's first Man Utd training session

Manchester United players not on international duty took part in new head coach Ruben Amorim’s first training session in charge on Monday.

Winter has very much, and quite suddenly, descended on the UK over the last few days, but players and staff appeared in high spirits as they took to the field at Carrington together.

Amorim has brought with him five coaches from former club Sporting CP in a bid to re-energise the United squad inherited from Erik ten Hag, and has been tasked with primarily unlocking the potential within rather than relying upon the transfer market.

Here, 90min considers five key talking points from the session highlights.

We all know that Amorim speaks flawless English from a variety of press conferences in recent times, as well as his first official interview since arriving at United. But his ability to clearly communicate also extends to the training pitch, as he was seen and heard shouting instructions during the opening session.

In one instance, Amorim was seen looking at his watch and shouting “come on” to the players when a drill was not reset quickly enough for his satisfaction.

Famously, Sir Alex Ferguson used to delegate training to coaching staff while he typically observed. The legendary former boss was the archetypal ‘manager’, a role that has ceased to exist at the top end of modern professional football. It was telling that Amorim was introduced as United’s first-ever “head coach” and it appears to be him that is doing the bulk of the coaching in training.

Other coaching staff will likely lead work more with individuals or smaller groups, or focus on key specifics, but Amorim is the main man and is at the heart of it all.

Leny Yoro, Tyrell Malacia and Luke Shaw were all a big part of day one training and none have played a role so far this season. Yoro suffered a foot injury in his first pre-season outing after arriving from Lille and is basically still a brand new signing, while Shaw hasn’t played any club football since February, and Malacia’s last first-team appearance was way back in May 2023.

To have all three potentially in a place where they can be involved either as soon as the campaign resumes, or quite soon after, is a huge boost.

A lot has been written and said about whether Amorim will change United, who have tended to always use a 4-4-2 or variants of a 4-3-3 in the living memory of most fans.

The Portuguese built his success at Sporting CP on 3-4-3, a similar system to what Antonio Conte used to deliver Chelsea’s Premier League title in 2016/17, and there is already evidence of a switch.

The personnel will be adapted when Amorim has a full set of players to utilise after the international break, but it was clear that a training game on day one was set up with a back three. That saw Yoro as right-sided centre-back, Jonny Evans in the middle and Luke Shaw as the left-sided centre-back. The latter played that role for England as recently as the Euro 2024 quarter-final last summer. It is less physically demanding than a typical full-back or wing-back role but will suit his defensive ability.

It has become the norm across the board for coaches who don’t want to see a goalkeeper kick the ball long into midfield and risk easily losing possession, but United have been arguably one of the latecomers to the trend of playing out from the back.

Former goalkeeper David de Gea wasn’t built for that style of play, but one of the reasons Erik ten Hag was so keen on Andre Onana was so that United could have the benefit of his feet. Amorim isn’t going to change that, with training demonstrating in one particular passage of play how he intends to build from a goal-kick situation, starting with a short pass inside the six-yard box.

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