Speaking to a manager after a painful defeat can often be a tense experience. Just take the numerous spiky exchanges Ange Postecoglou has had with reporters during Tottenham’s abysmal run of defeats, or Jurgen Klopp losing his rag on the rare occasion Liverpool were beaten. Or practically every interview or press conference Jose Mourinho has given after a loss.
In difficult moments most managers go on the defensive and try, through gritted teeth, to insist that they have been unlucky, to blame their plight on injuries or referees’ decisions. But not Ruben Amorim.
The Manchester United boss would have had every right to clam up in front of the press after each morale-sapping defeat, and yet he has been at his most open and most engaging following the team’s losses. Sunday’s press conference after the 3-1 defeat by Brighton was his most honest and brutal appearance in front of the media, when Amorim looked journalists in the eye and told them his side was perhaps the worst Manchester United team in the club’s entire history.
It was a journalist’s dream and Amorim knew it as he added: “Here you go – your headlines.”