Manchester United manager insists his team are “in a better place than last year”
Ruben Amorim has said Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s visit to Carrington this week was routine and not an ominous sign for his tenure.
United have won just once in four Premier League matches, leaving them in 14th place, a worryingly similar position to their remarkably low 15th-place finish last season.
Co-owner Ratcliffe flew into Manchester on Thursday and the highlight of his activities was a meeting with the embattled head coach, but Amorim dismissed talk of a crisis.
“He offered me a new contract,” Amorim joked with reporters on Friday, ahead of United’s crunch clash against Chelsea. “No, it’s normal things, just to show support and explain it’s a long season.
“I spoke with him, with Omar [Berrada, United CEO] and Jason [Wilcox, Director of Football], trying to see all the data around the team. So it’s a normal meeting and we’ve had several, but in this moment it’s normal that people pay attention to that.”
United host Chelsea on Saturday after a 3-0 derby defeat at Manchester City last week. They haven’t lost to the London club at Old Trafford since 2013, which means that calls from pundits and supporters for Amorim’s dismissal will grow much louder with a negative result.
“We want to win,” said Amorim. “Last year I was very critical of the way we played but now I think we are playing very well until the boxes, defending and attacking. We need to be more aggressive in the boxes, more clinical.
“I think we are improving and we are in a better place than last year, but we need to win.”
