Ruben Amorim continues ruthless Man Utd shake-up by demoting Erik ten Hag signing

One of Erik ten Hag’s three trusted aides that survived his Manchester United sacking appears to have been relieved of his primary duty by Ruben Amorim. Amorim took over from Ten Hag during the November international break, bringing six members of his backroom staff from Sporting with him.

United dismissed assistants Ruud van Nistelrooy and Rene Hake, goalkeeper coach Jelle ten Rouwelaar and analyst Pieter Morel on the Portuguese boss’ first day at Carrington.

The only holdovers from the previous regime were first team coach Darren Fletcher, set-piece specialist Andreas Georgson, plus assistant first team goalkeeper coach Craig Mawson.

Amorim has so far overseen just one match, a 1-1 draw at Ipswich Town on Sunday. His second falls on Thursday night when Bodo/Glimt visit Old Trafford in the Europa League.

And, from watching the Portman Road dugout during his debut outing, the new United boss appears to be already making further changes to signal a clear departure from Ten Hag’s ways.

According to the Daily Mail, Georgson played a reserved role in East Anglia after handing over his set-piece duties to the coaches brought in by Amorim.

Georgson’s main roles under Ten Hag had been supervising free-kicks and corners. However, the Swede relinquished that duty to new arrivals Carlos Fernandes and Adelio Candido during the warm-up ahead of the Ipswich game.

Fernandes and Candido spent much of the pre-match warm-up overseeing drills, and every set-piece in-game – both attacking and defending – saw the former give instructions from the technical area.

Georgson’s main role at Portman Road was to liaise with the fourth official about the status of VAR after a fire drill at Stockley Park left the game without the technology for six minutes.

Amorim has not yet publicly detailed how Georgson and Fletcher will fit into his plans. Yet, United have maintained that both are key members of the first-team coaching staff.

The new Red Devils head coach expressed his frustration after his side’s stalemate with struggling Ipswich, a match they could easily have lost if not for Andre Onana’s latest heroics.

“They are thinking about too much, because things are so different,” Amorim explained while assessing the visitors’ performance after full-time.

“Some details, they used to pass the ball and go forwards and now they have to go back. These types of things, they have to think too much.

“It is hard for the players in three days to try to cope with everything, but we have two ways: we forget about the new idea – and I think that’s why I was brought here in the middle of the season – and we try to cope with what they are used to doing.

“And next year, at the same stage, we will be here with the same problems. Or we start now, we risk a little bit, we suffer a little bit and next year we will be better at this point. So we have to risk it a little bit.”