Ruben Amorim has had one easy excuse to explain his Manchester United side’s form in the first two months of his reign.
Ineos handled the sacking of Erik ten Hag horribly, with the timing of Ruben Amorim’s appointment a nightmare for the Portuguese 40-year-old.
Manchester United’s managerial role was an inevitable event, which many saw coming from September, yet the club waited until the end of October.
This meant that by the time Amorim was in, the club was embarking on the busiest period of the season with games every three days.
Due to such a packed picture list – Amorim barely had a chance to get his new players on the training pitch.
But this is about to drastically change.
Ruben Amorim’s week of training is the biggest yet
In December, Amorim admitted that he’d barely trained his team since taking charge due to the rampant fixture congestion.
Amorim has a rule of players training differently depending on workload – so those who play on Friday for example, wouldn’t train with the group until Sunday or even Monday depending on minutes.
Which, when the math is done, made training and developing the team in December almost impossible.
However, following United’s FA Cup triumph over Leicester City, Amorim’s side had nine days before facing Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.
This should give Amorim a solid week on the training pitch with the entire squad together working on the system and learning roles – something which has been a big problem over the past two months.
Amorim’s got zero excuses for Manchester United against Spurs
Due to the circumstances facing Amorim early on and a general acceptance that his squad is very poor, the head coach has received limited critique so far.
Amorim warned fans of this impending storm, and his prediction has proved true thus far – but against Spurs the excuses end and he needs a big performance.
With a full week of training, this should theoretically be the best performance we see from United under Amorim, while the opponents should also see a good performance put in.
Tottenham are in form worse than United and even sit below the Red Devils in the league table.
This is the chance for a statement by United, something which Amorim must be working hard to achieve. Spurs could be a watershed moment, but we won’t believe it until we see it.