Manchester United have been victims of team sheet leaks for many months and Ruben Amorim, who has not been spared despite running a tight ship, has finally taken action to curb it.
In a sport where the team sheet is sacred and a way to throw opponents off a team’s tactical scent, United have struggled to keep theirs a secret. Many of their team sheets have been leaked as early as 24 hours before they have a game, which provides insights to their opponents ahead of the clash
Amorim has had two leaks – the latest being the team sheet for the Manchester derby – in the six games he has taken charge of since becoming the club’s trainer. Now, it has been reported that the former Sporting CP Lisbon manager has fingered two of his players as culprits as he looks to get to the bottom of the leaks.
The reports go further to state that the players involved are derby day hero Amad Diallo and Alejandro Garnacho, and that the manager has grilled them to determine their innocence or guilt. Garnacho’s involvement is due to the social media speculations that his 15-year-old brother, Roberto, has been accused as being the culprit behind the leaks.
While he is trying to find out the culprit behind the leaks and curb them, he has also sent a strong warning to the squad.
Recently, INEOS cut down the club’s workforce by 250 staff. Amorim seems to be towing that line by letting the players know that the unserious ones – according to his set parameters – will be axed.
He dropped Marcus Rashford and Garnacho for the derby and the media questioned him on the decision. They asked if it was disciplinary or that both players were not up to his standard, and the man responded: “It’s important to say why: it was not a disciplinary thing.
“Next week, next game, new life, they are fighting for their places. For me it’s important, the performance in training, the performance in games, the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you engage with teammates, the way you push your teammates.
“Everything is important in our context in the beginning of something when we want to change a lot of things, when people in our club are losing their jobs we have to set the standards really high and for that they have to fight for a place in the team.
“Today the team proved we can leave anyone out of the squad and manage to win if you play together. If it was disciplinary, I would say that here and it will be a bigger problem but was not that.”
