Ruben Amorim: Man Utd boss responds to Cristiano Ronaldo criticism that he can’t work “miracles” with current squad | Football News

Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim has urged people to “forget” the past after Cristiano Ronaldo’s scathing criticism of the club.

Ronaldo delivered a damning verdict of United’s current squad and suggested Amorim cannot perform “miracles” at Old Trafford.

In another interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored, after his 2022 sitdown led to the premature end of his second spell at United, Ronaldo said: “He’s [Amorim] doing his best. What are you gonna do? Miracles? Miracles are impossible. We say in Portugal, miracles are only in Fatima.

“You’re not gonna do miracles. Even the players. Manchester United have good players, but then some of them don’t have the mind what is Manchester United?”

Asked about Ronaldo’s comments, Amorim suggested that, despite Ronaldo knowing full well the impact that his words can have and mistakes in the past, improvements are being made at Old Trafford.

“He knows he has a huge impact in everything he says,” Amorim said at his press conference.

“What we need to do is focus on the future. We know that we, as a club, made a lot of mistakes in the past, but we are trying to change that. So let’s not focus on what happened.

“Let’s focus on what we are doing now, and we are doing that. We are changing a lot of things in the structure, the way we do things, that we want the players to behave. We are doing that, and we are improving.

“So let’s focus on the way we are doing things; we are improving. Let’s continue and forget a little bit [about] the past.”

‘We are a better team since the Europa League final loss’

Amorim was facing the media ahead of United’s trip to Tottenham on Saturday lunchtime. It’s the first time United will have met Spurs since a sobering 1-0 Europa League final defeat in May.

A win for Amorim’s side, who have shown an upturn in form on a current run of four without defeat, will see them move into second place in the Premier League. Amorim believes he will take a better United team to Tottenham than the one that lost to Spurs in Bilbao. Asked about the differences in his current side, Amorim said:

“First of all, the characteristics of the players. We have different characteristics in our team. We also have a lot of players who played last year, so we are a better team. We play better. We understand the game better.

“I think we are more confident. We reached that final confident that we could win because we were doing well in Europe. But in this moment, we play with a different confidence.

“We manage the moments of the game better. But if you remember that game, they have that shot on the goal; they won the game. So I expect a different game, that we can play better, but also to have a little bit of luck to help us to win the game.

“We believe more that we can win any game, and we already proved that we can win any game. The last game [at Nottingham Forest] was tough on us, because in some moments, we were not the team that we were supposed to be in every minute.

“And compare that to Brighton, and we suffer two goals against Brighton, but was a different thing. So we know that we cannot forget that we have a lot to improve.

“We are more prepared for anything that happens in the game, so that is also a good thing. So we are in a better moment, but we also know that we have a lot to do, a lot to improve, to be able to win more of this kind of game, and consistently win games in a row.

“So we know that we are capable, we are confident, but we also know that we struggle sometimes in games that we need to do better.”

Defeat in May and a 15th-place finish meant that United missed out on a place in this season’s Champions League, while Spurs, who finished 17th, qualified for the competition.

Despite a lack of European football for just the second time in Premier League history, Amorim maintains he sees the positives of the loss in the final.

“It’s not the fact of seeing the positive is using the positives. So any situation that you have in your life, you can look in a positive way or in a bad way. If you ask me, you prefer to be here with a cup in the Champions League.

“Champions League, more money, more players? Maybe, of course, I will say yes, but you have the other side. You have more time to train, to know your players, to arrange everything, the connection between staff and to prepare the future.

“In the future will be with European competition. So we just tried to use the positive thing of not playing all the games during the week. So yes, I can see the positives.”