Ruben Amorim has caught Jose Mourinho ‘DISEASE’

Robin Bairner

• 7 Apr 2025 11:00 BST
• 4 min read

News

Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim has been criticised by Gary Neville for catching the same “disease” that Jose Mourinho had while at Old Trafford following the scoreless Premier League draw with Manchester City.

Neville criticised Amorim’s excessive micromanagement, which he believes has stifled any creativity and excitement in the current Man Utd crop.

The Sky Sports pundit says he understands why the Portuguese has adopted the no-thrills system that he has put in place, so typical of Mourinho's mindset, but says the club is in danger of losing its identity.

“This robotic nature of not leaving our positions, of basically being micromanaged within an inch of our lives, of not having any freedom to take a risk to go and try and win a football match, is becoming an illness in the game. It's becoming a disease in the game,” Neville said.

“I think about Pep Guardiola and his teams over the last 10 years. That's what his teams do. But we're seeing poor imitations of that across the board now. You know, United's goalkeeper rolling his foot on the ball and waiting for things to happen. That's not it. That's not what this club is. That's not what we do here. Liverpool don't do that. You've got to be a top team with tempo in your play, rhythm in your play, get the ball moving, shift it quickly.

“I get why he's gone deep. I get why he's gone back into a sort of, like he called it, a low block. But that's what we've seen from Jose Mourinho. It's what we've seen from Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. It's what we've seen from Eric Ten Hag. They've all come in with the intention of playing high-press, high-energy football, but all end up going back to a low block in big games.

“And I do understand why Ruben Amorim's done that today with the players he's got, because he hasn't got the players to adapt.”

United need to splash the cash

Neville has called for a serious summer transfer overhaul at Old Trafford, with INEOS required to sign a handful of new players to make Amorim’s side competitive.

He argued: “They need five new players, Manchester United, straight away before you even think about the rest of it. The three up front are not good enough. The two behind and the one and the two wing-backs, they're not good enough.

“So they need five players. They need to serve him with five players who are good enough in this system to be able to play his system the way he wants.

“But the game today really was quite depressing for me because I think we've seen a lot of these types of games. And the Premier League is about excitement. It's about thrill. It's about risk. And there was nothing like that in that game.”

Man Utd are next in action in the Europa League against Lyon on Thursday.