I admire how he’s not going quietly. Can you imagine how it’ll be when he comes back to OT.
He was already back at OT and didnt even get on. He got booed loudly when he made the trip from the dug out to the tunnel.
Anybody do the needful here? I don’t have a telegraph sub.
Ah that one didn’t count
Here you go
Ruben Amorim’s year at Manchester United: Tears, breaking a TV and nearly quitting
To say manager’s first 12 months in charge have been tumultuous would be an understatement, but there are signs club are turning a corner
James DuckerNorthern Football Correspondent
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11 November 2025 6:01am GMT
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Goodison Park, February 22. Manchester United’s players filed back into the dressing room after one of the most insipid first halves of Ruben Amorim’s reign. Goals from Beto and Abdoulaye Doucouré had given Everton a 2-0 lead and Amorim was not exaggerating when he later conceded his side “did not exist” in those opening 45 minutes.
United’s Portuguese manager has never been one for long half-time addresses but, even by his standards, his visit to the dressing room that day was fleeting to say the least.
Indeed, Amorim spent most of the interval sitting on his haunches in the corridor outside, staring down at the ground, as bemused Everton staff looked on. It was left to Darren Fletcher, the first-team coach at the time, to rally United’s beleaguered players.
‘Storm’ premonition proves correct… and then some
When Amorim spoke in the days after United’s humiliating Carabao Cup exit at League Two Grimsby Town six months later about how he “sometimes wants to quit” and “sometimes hates” his players, that Everton game may well have been one of those moments. United would rally to claim a 2-2 draw at Goodison thanks predominantly to Bruno Fernandes, whose desperation to drag his side back into the game had only been hardened by the sight of the legendary Everton defender Derek Mountfield jabbing a playful elbow in the direction of his team-mates as they returned to the pitch for the start of the second half. Red rag to a bull for United’s captain, that.
But that was one of those days when Amorim’s emotions appeared to get the better of him and one of several examples of just how much the 40-year-old takes things to heart, how much his team’s struggles pain him.
It has, of course, been a tumultuous first year in charge, with Tuesday 12 months to the day since he began his tenure at Old Trafford. His first game – a 1-1 draw away to Ipswich Town – offered no real indication of what was to follow. Amorim warned early on that a “storm was coming”, but not even he could have imagined the ferocity of it.
Players’ respect grew after smashing television
But he is a better manager for the experience, one that would have done for lesser men, and an unbeaten five-match run has raised hope of a corner being turned and given United a tentative platform from which to build during the busy run of fixtures to Christmas. The players believe Champions League qualification is attainable. After finishing 15th last term, it would represent a huge turnaround if they were to achieve it.
Amorim comes from a country and culture in which managers are expected to show, not hide, their emotions and that creates a performative side. One need only watch the likes of José Mourinho and Sérgio Conceição in action to appreciate that.
Amorim makes little effort to hide his emotions on the touchline Credit: Reuters /Chris Radburn
Yet the need for Amorim to better manage his emotions is obvious and the man himself admitted as much recently. The good news is there are signs of that happening. No less passionate but a little more measured, but no one could accuse him of not investing himself wholly in a process that at times would leave him struggling to sleep at night.
The players witnessed that in plain sight in mid-January when Amorim, with tears forming in his eyes, accidentally smashed a television in the Old Trafford dressing room after launching into an angry tirade in the wake of a 3-1 defeat by Brighton. It shocked the players to see the manager that way, but there were some who totally understood his strength of feeling and, if anything, grew in respect for him.
Europa League loss a blessing in disguise
It would probably be overstating things to say Jason Wilcox, the sporting director with whom Amorim has forged a close working relationship, and the similarly calm-headed chief executive Omar Berrada, had to talk their manager out of quitting around that time, but he was certainly questioning things and needed reassurance. He would subsequently admit that he dreaded the match-day drive to Old Trafford because he knew his team would struggle to be competitive. That last season played out against a bleak backdrop of hundreds of staff losing their jobs and cuts and changes to all departments hardly did much for the mood, either.
Managing United is no ordinary job. In terms of the level of unrelenting scrutiny the position attracts, perhaps only coaching Real Madrid and Barcelona compare, and Amorim is under no illusions about that. The Europa League final, which United lost tamely to Tottenham Hotspur in Bilbao in May, was cast as a meeting of the Premier League’s two “big six” basket cases. In fact, losing that final may prove a blessing in disguise given how the failure to qualify for the Champions League has presented Amorim with more time on the training ground this term.
Amorim found amusing the suggestion that the pressure Ange Postecoglou was facing at Spurs last season was comparable to the heat on the United manager Credit: Getty Images/Zohaib Alam
But while Ange Postecoglou, despite his European success, would end up losing his job after finishing two places below United in 17th, Amorim would chuckle privately at the idea that the pressure they faced was in some way comparable. “I can understand the connection between me and Ange, we have the same problems,” the United head coach said at one stage. “But with all due respect, I am in a bigger club with bigger pressure.”
Tottenham were United’s opponents again on Saturday, a 2-2 draw which offered another stark reminder of how far Amorim’s side still have to go but one that also pointed to some of the areas of progress in more recent weeks that have resulted in victories against Sunderland, Liverpool and Brighton and Hove Albion. They should not have surrendered a 1-0 lead so cheaply but, having done so, they rallied to snatch a point. Confidence is slowly increasing, some players are belatedly improving and Amorim has got the likes of Luke Shaw and Mason Mount, previously always injured, back playing consistently.
Casemiro, who looked like his legs had gone in the final months of Erik ten Hag’s tenure, is enjoying a second wind, even if United are screaming out for a longer-term solution in the No 6 position. While there remain obvious fault lines that only more time on the training ground and further signings will address, the mood is different from last season and criticism of Amorim’s controversial 3-4-2-1 system is not as fierce as it once was.
‘Ruben is more flexible than people give him credit for’
In September, while discussing a return to management with Benfica, Mourinho said: “We’re in a generation where we see coaches trying to do things that just don’t work and they die. But they say, ‘I died, but I died with my idea’. My friend, if you died by your ideas, you are stupid.”
Mourinho could just as easily have been referring to the likes of Postecoglou and the former Southampton and Rangers manager Russell Martin, among others, as his compatriot Amorim. But Wilcox, both publicly and privately, has always felt Amorim is a lot more adaptable than he is often perceived to be and few could argue that the Portuguese’s system will not be enhanced should he get the chance to add a new midfielder or two and better wing-backs.
“Ruben’s got a very clear idea, but it’s a lot more flexible, that idea, than what people give it credit for,” he said last week. “We’ve got to start with the end [game] in mind.” They also point out at United that these players were not exactly pulling up trees in 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 formations previously and there were invariably just as many problems back then.
Club make sure authority is not undermined
Like Amorim, Wilcox and Berrada are in bigger roles than they have ever occupied previously. When Amorim’s head was, in the words of one source, “falling off” at times last season, Wilcox was the steady hand beside him and Berrada’s consistent presence at the training ground since Carrington’s £50m revamp has only strengthened the trio’s alliance. There is said to be recognition internally that, at some point, the club have to break the damaging cycle of persistent managerial upheaval and, while the mood darkened again after that dire 3-1 defeat at Brentford in late September, the unwavering support of fans towards Amorim has emboldened the hierarchy. “The fans have been a huge contributor to making sure that we can make the right decisions,” Wilcox said. “The way they’ve stuck by the players, the manager, the football leadership team, has been incredible.”
There have been some brave moves, such as backing Amorim over the decision to sell Alejandro Garnacho to Chelsea for £40m and bomb out Marcus Rashford, who has spent the entirety of this year so far out on loan, first at Aston Villa and now Barcelona.
Shipping out both Alejandro Garnacho (left) and Marcus Rashford was a bold decision Credit: Reuters/Molly Darlington
There are some internally who still question the decision to offload Argentina winger Garnacho, whom sources suggested was simply young and petulant and in need of guidance and careful man-management, as opposed to being cast as a bad egg and corrosive presence.
Others may wonder if there would have been quite the willingness to sell Garnacho had United not had so few saleable assets in the squad at a time when the club desperately needed to generate money.
But what Wilcox and Berrada were determined to ensure was that the manager’s authority was not in any way undermined and it helps that co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has steadfastly shared that belief. That was not the case when Mourinho was in charge at Old Trafford, with the board backing the likes of Anthony Martial and Paul Pogba over the manager and fatally undermining the man in charge in the process. Conversely, this squad know they cross Amorim at their peril.
Amorim has received steadfast support from co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe Credit: Getty Images/Carl Recine
Amorim has not had everything his own way, though. If the goalkeeping decision had been left entirely to the manager this summer, he would likely have plumped for Villa’s Emiliano Martínez over Senne Lammens. But Tony Coton, United’s goalkeeping scout, had been banging the drum for Lammens “relentlessly” to Wilcox for a year and so far at least the £18.1m recruitment of the Belgian from Royal Antwerp looks a smart piece of business.
Wilcox and the recruitment team have been keen to ensure the tail is not wagging the dog. The £47.2m signing of Cameroon goalkeeper André Onana, 12 months after he was available on a free transfer, was one of numerous examples of Amorim’s predecessor Ten Hag being hopelessly indulged on transfers. Onana was a popular figure behind the scenes, but he was erratic and unpredictable and the reality is he spread panic among the defenders and wider team. Change was imperative. Lammens’s United career is only five games old but already the 23-year-old, with his calm, reassuring presence, appears an upgrade.
Senne Lammens has a calming presence that was sorely lacking with his predecessor André Onana Credit: Reuters/Phil Noble
Data shows United are unrecognisable from last term
United have regularly pointed to the underlying data as evidence of the improvement, arguing that performances merit more points than they have on the board and, in the majority of metrics, they are unrecognisable from last term.
One of the big issues, though, remains their profligacy in front of goal. Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha, signed for a combined £133.5m from Brentford and Wolverhampton Wanderers respectively in the summer, have improved the attack. Mbeumo’s header against Spurs was his seventh goal of the campaign, but United still have the worst shot conversion rate (9.6 per cent) in the league. In turn, that is increasing the pressure on a defence that still has a decidedly fragile streak and remains vulnerable to conceding in bursts. Nottingham Forest, for example, scored twice in 102 seconds and a week later Spurs scored twice in seven minutes.
Still, only Bournemouth and Brighton have won possession in the final third on more occasions than United, who are third for recoveries (although Amorim would argue in that regard they still need to take better care of the ball). Only Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea are seeing more of the ball.
There are potential headaches on the horizon, naturally. Amorim will lose Mbeumo, Amad Diallo and Noussair Mazraoui for up to a month to the Africa Cup of Nations before Christmas, for example, but there was good news on Monday that the knee injury which forced off £73.7m summer signing Benjamin Sesko against Spurs is not serious. Defender Lisandro Martínez is also edging closer to a return from an cruciate knee injury and will train with Argentina this week but not take part in their games.
Benjamin Sesko’s knee injury is not thought to be serious Credit: Getty Images/Julian Finney
Sesko, the Slovenia striker, is a good example of the kind of “clean-living” character and consummate professional United have been prioritising signing as they strive to end an era of dressing-room toxicity and a player – preferred ahead of more proven performers – the club hope will develop into a world-class talent.
Ordinarily, United’s players do not need to report until 9.45am, but Sesko is in at eight most mornings and will jump in the hyperbaric chamber, which boosts the amount of oxygen in the bloodstream and is good for muscle preparation, often in the company of Diogo Dalot.
He also does a very long post-training session, including massages, sauna and ice baths, and is big on mindfulness. At home, Sesko likes yoga and will meditate and use a simple relaxation technique called box breathing that involves inhaling, holding the breath, exhaling and holding again, typically to a count of four. He says it helps calm him and clear his head.
Things certainly seem a little calmer and the heads a little clearer across the board at United this season after one of the most eventful periods in their modern history. Time will tell where that leads.
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you can have Dion Dublin as well
Dion Dublin interview: I lived with Jason Statham above a pub – the stories I can tell you…
It has been a life less ordinary for the former Man Utd and Coventry striker who is now a household name as host of Homes Under the Hammer
James DuckerNorthern Football Correspondent
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09 November 2025 6:24am GMT
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Dion Dublin is one of the true good guys of English football Credit: Paul Cooper for The Telegraph
The stories come thick and fast.
About the broken leg that effectively ended his Manchester United career and the apology from the perpetrator of the tackle that – 33 years on – has never arrived.
About the day he got the full hairdryer treatment from an incandescent Sir Alex Ferguson. About the game he headbutted Robbie Savage. “I wish I’d done the f----- harder to be fair!”
About the pranks they would play on opponents at Cambridge United and the occasion he floored a team-mate for racially abusing him. About the Aston Villa physio and doctor without whom he is convinced he would be paralysed from the neck down.
About his beloved late father, Eddie, who had come to Britain as part of the Windrush generation, writing and then photocopying the same letter and posting it to all 92 Football League clubs in the hope one might take a punt on his teenage son.
About crossing the road as a nine-year old schoolkid in his home city of Leicester in the forlorn hope of avoiding a kicking from local white thugs. About those unforgettable open-house Sundays in summer at the Dublins when the air would be rich with soul and jazz music and the future England footballer would earn 25p for every cigarette he rolled for the adults as they played cards and dominoes.
About working in hosiery, ice-cream factories and a leisure centre setting up badminton nets while playing non-league football. And about being more recognisable these days as one of the presenters on BBC property show Homes Under the Hammer, not to mention his accidental catchphrase that went viral.
But the conversation with Dion Dublin, one of the true good guys of English football, begins in Great Yarmouth and specifically the eight months he spent living as a 16-year-old in a one-bed flat above a pub called Boobs with a future Hollywood A-lister while trying to earn a professional contract with Norwich.
Rooming with Statham
Long before films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch helped catapult him to superstardom, Jason Statham was a drummer in a band with Dublin’s eldest brother, Ash, and the trio would end up rooming together. There is a scene in Lock Stock where Statham does a back-flip during a drunken bender and for Dublin it still reminds him of their nights out together. “Jason used to be a high-board diver for Great Britain so we’d go out, watch my brother DJ and I’d be standing there at the bar with my Malibu and pineapple and Jason would suddenly do his party trick,” Dublin explains.
“He had a little bit of hair then but he was just this beautiful sculpture of a man. The chiselled jaw, the body. He was a couple of years older than me and even at 18 he was so comfortable and charismatic. He didn’t try very hard to be cool, it was just him. You could imagine the reaction when he did his somersault. I used to get his flick-ons. Whatever girls Jason didn’t fancy, I’d be all over. They were great times. Amazing.”
Jason Statham with Kelly Brook at the premiere of the film ‘Snatch’ Credit: AP/Kevork Djansezian
The opening scene in Lock Stock, where Statham’s wise-cracking character Bacon is selling knock-off jewellery, also brings the memories flooding back. “He used to sell his fake gold on Great Yarmouth Market with his brother Lee. His tagline – and I’ll never forget this until the day I die – was ‘You can scratch it, scrape it, the gold won’t come off!’” Dublin recalls. “I haven’t seen Jason in years but I’m sure he’d give me a massive hug if we bumped into each other and he’d be asking, ‘How are you? How’s Ash?’ He’s a fantastic guy.”
So is Dublin. Warm, funny, kind, honest and with a resilient, steely core underpinning that infectious personality that makes him a natural in front of the camera as both a football pundit and presenter for the BBC. A morning and afternoon in his company is a treat and a journey through a 20-year career that took him from the likes of non-league Highfield Rangers and Wigston Fields in Leicestershire all the way to Manchester United before it all ended back roughly where it began, at Norwich, is a roller coaster of emotions.
Dublin was part of a golden era of English centre-forwards in the Premier League in the 1990s alongside the likes of Alan Shearer, Andy Cole, Ian Wright, Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen and Les Ferdinand, when 4-4-2 and orthodox wingers who crossed the ball were the name of the game. He is not one for regrets but he does still wonder if he would have added to his 111 Premier League goals and four England caps – not to mention his trophy haul – had his United career not been derailed 26 days after Ferguson made a surprise move to sign him from Cambridge for £1m in 1992 after losing out to Blackburn for Shearer.
“That is the only regret,” Dublin says. “I genuinely think I would have scored a lot of goals at United and I would have done it over years. The way United used to play, with [Andrei] Kanchelskis and [Ryan] Giggs and Sharpey [Lee Sharpe] and Denis Irwin and then [David] Beckham, all they did was cross. It was made for me.”
Dublin’s first start at Old Trafford was 44 minutes old when a dreadful scissor-kick challenge by Crystal Palace’s Eric Young shattered his fibula and put him out for seven months. Ferguson went out and signed Eric Cantona from Leeds and the rest is history. “I had battles with a lot of players – cross words, heated moments – but afterwards it was always ‘fancy a beer?’” Dublin says. “I always left it on the pitch. But the one thing about that broken leg is Eric Young never got in touch with me and never apologised. And to this day, 33 years on, I still think, ‘You t—’.”
Still, he is grateful for the United experience and what he learnt. He would go back to Old Trafford with the likes of Coventry and watch team-mates visibly wilt in the tunnel. “Players were beaten before they even stepped out,” he says. “I remember turning up once for Coventry and as we got off the bus Richard Shaw, who was one of the jokers, said, ‘Right lads, if we play like we can we’ll keep it down to 2-0’.”
Facing Ferguson’s fury
It was a year after that Palace game when Dublin got a first taste of Ferguson’s hairdryer. “We were playing Stoke in a League Cup game and I was f------ terrible in the first half,” Dublin recalls. “All they were doing was crossing it and I’m shanking it or heading it and it’s hitting the corner flag. I couldn’t hit the target to save my life.
“Normally when you’re having a stinker and you walk in at half-time there will be a couple of lads who say, ‘Hey, come on’ but nobody spoke to me. I got into the dressing room and the people who sat next to me had edged away slightly. They all knew what was coming.”
Dublin deliberately untied his laces and was pretending to do them up when Ferguson entered. “I could see the gaffer’s feet in the periphery and then the door clamps shut. ‘Hey you!’ And then the feet start coming closer. ‘Hey you! F------ this, f------ that.’ He’s about 20 centimetres from my face shouting and screaming. My eyes are blinking. There’s this constant spray of spit in my face and all I can see over the gaffer’s shoulders are the lads’ shoulders going up and down, chuckling away thinking, ‘F------ hell, that’ll teach ye!’. ‘F------ waste of money.’ I haven’t really been more scared in a dressing room. And then as the gaffer walks away, the lads who were closest to me came back to sit right next to me again, tapped me on the legs and said, ‘Come on big man’.”
It worked. “I went back out and scored. Gaffer said, ‘Well played big man, brilliant second half’ and that was it. The hairdryer is not for show. The hairdryer is, ‘Can you take it? Can you respond to it? Because I know what you’ve got but I need to do this in order to bring it out’. The skill was in knowing who to give it to. He wouldn’t do it to Eric Cantona, he wouldn’t do it to [Cristiano] Ronaldo. He wouldn’t do it to Robbo [Bryan Robson], just through sheer respect. He knows he’d lose them or it would not be the way they’d best respond.”
Ferguson just got people, Dublin says. Take Cantona. Dublin remembers the Frenchman rocking up to Mark Hughes’s testimonial in ripped jeans and a denim jacket – with the collar turned up, naturally – and a pair of white Nike trainers while the rest of the squad were in official club suits. “We’re all thinking the gaffer’s going to go mental here but he doesn’t say a word,” Dublin says. “After the game, the gaffer quietly pulled Eric as he’s come out of the shower and we can see him whispering messages in the distance.” Some time later there is another testimonial. “Eric walks in: white shirt, club tie, club blazer, grey trousers – and white Nike trainers,” Dublin says, laughing. “There’s a nod to the gaffer but he still needed to keep his own little spin on things. Ferguson didn’t say anything. And that was his brilliance. Because he knew Eric needed to be Eric.”
Sir Alex Ferguson knew how to ‘handle’ Eric Cantona Credit: Russell Cheyne for The Telegraph
Gordon Strachan, who managed Dublin during a hugely enjoyable period at Coventry, including the 1997-98 campaign when he finished as the Premier League’s joint-top scorer on 18 goals with Owen and Chris Sutton, was another Scot with a talent for reading people.
Coventry were playing a star-studded Chelsea at Highfield Road on the opening day of the 1998-99 season and in order to access the away dressing room you had to walk past the home one first. Strachan was five minutes later than normal. “‘Right I’ve just watched Chelsea come off the coach and they don’t give a s— about you. You are nothing to them. They’ve already won the game’. So he opens our dressing-room door and says, ‘Have a look at this’. Squeezes us all in together so we can watch the Chelsea players walk past. Somebody has a trouser leg up, another has headphones on, one has a cap on backwards, they’ve got music blaring. Gordon didn’t say anything else. He just could closed the door.”
Coventry won 2-1, with Dublin and Darren Huckerby “who I possibly had my most success playing up front with” getting the goals. Marcel Desailly and Frank Leboeuf were playing centre-half for Chelsea. “When I see Frank and Marcel now they both still joke about it and pretend to be scared of me, ‘Ahhh, it’s Dublin. Oh no!’”
Dirty tricks
Dublin was part of some great dressing rooms. Cambridge were in the old fourth division when he pitched up as a “thin, gangly little kid, quite timid” in 1988. By the time he left four years and more than 60 goals later they had only narrowly missed out on reaching the top flight after losing in the play-offs.
His old manager John Beck even pulled together a video compilation of all his goals for Ferguson. They were masters of the dark arts. “If it was a hot day, we’d screw the windows of the opponent’s dressing room closed and if it was a cold day we’d screw them open. Back then you gave opponents these big grey teapots but we’d put about three bags of sugar in so they’d get this massive high then crash 15 minutes into the game.”
The dirty tricks did not end there. “We’d give them no hot water at all and in those days when you went to any ground you’d get your warm-up balls from the home team so we’d shove the balls in the bath so they were as heavy as anything and then when the game started they’d be thrown by the lighter weight of the match ball.”
Even now, he could pick up the phone to any of those Cambridge team-mates and it would be just like yesterday. It was a special bond. There was just a solitary grim moment on the training ground when he was racially abused. He will not disclose his team-mate’s name but it prompted a very rare act of violence from Dublin. “The only time I’ve ever punched someone is when they called me a f------ black b------.” Bam, smacked him. It was just a natural reaction. I picked him up, said sorry, and that was it, done. He never did it again and hopefully he learnt a lesson, but I had it from fans, the monkey chants, all that kind of thing. You black this, you black that.”
Dealing with racism
The youngest of five children, Dublin first encountered racism at school in Leicester. His dad and mum Rose, who had arrived in England from Dominica in the Caribbean, had suffered terrible abuse, initially living in Notting Hill in London, and Dublin would have his own experiences before too long. “I’d have to go a certain way home from a youth club in Leicester to avoid certain people and one day, you go the wrong way, and you end up getting your head kicked in,” Dublin recalls.
“It was probably 10 seconds but it felt like half an hour. It toughened me up, taught me pain thresholds, resilience. And without knowing it at the time, those idiots kind of moulded me into the person I am today – straight, honest, hard-working, someone who doesn’t really fear much”.
It is hard to imagine Dublin ever losing his temper but he did so with Savage during a fiery Midlands derby between Villa and Birmingham at the tail end of 2002-03. They are BBC colleagues now but there was no love lost when Dublin careered through Savage and the pantomime villain went into full wind-up merchant mode. “Sav’s a good bloke off the pitch but on it he was an absolute a—hole,” Dublin says. “It was deliberate, part of his shtick. He’d actually asked for my shirt before the game and I said, ‘Of course you can son’. I was about three seconds late with the tackle, granted, but he got up off the floor and came walking towards me as if to say he was going to f------ chin me and I got all the usual verbals. Then the red mist descended. I was in the tunnel waiting for him for about 20 minutes before getting dragged away by the staff.”
It was at Villa that Dublin broke his neck playing against Sheffield Wednesday in December 1999. His broken leg at United may be his most-cited injury but he is eternally grateful to former Villa physio Jim Walker and club doctor Barrie Smith for their expert medical attention – and the specialist spinal surgeon Andre Jackowski who operated.
“Absolutely 100 per cent I could have ended up paralysed and in a wheelchair but for them,” he explains. Dublin had gone to challenge Wednesday’s strapping Gerald Sibon but his head ended up planting into the 6ft 6in forward’s chest. “My head went into my shoulders”. He had crushed his C5 vertebrae. “Jimmy literally held my neck up. The C4 and C6 vertebrae were almost touching and if they had then I’d have been f-----. He waited for the brace to go on, tape around my forehead, chin, chest, legs and wouldn’t allow any jerky movements while I was attached to the hardboard. It took about 15 minutes. I thought Villa Park was a perfect playing surface but when you’ve broken your neck and you’re going across the pitch on a golf buggy and hit every bump, let me tell you it’s horrible!”
In the hospital, all the nurses were Villa fans. “I’m in full kit and they’re cutting my shirt into pieces and sharing around bits of it to each other to keep! Brilliant.” Three-and-a-half months later, just as Jackowski had predicted, Dublin was back playing.
He is grateful he had not been forced into premature retirement like his former Coventry team-mate David Busst had been three-and-a-half years earlier. Busst suffered extensive compound fractures to the tibia and fibula in his right leg following a collision with United players Denis Irwin and Brian McClair at Old Trafford in 1996.
He would undergo 22 operations and while in hospital contracted MRSA which caused further damage to the tissue and muscle in that part of his leg. “It’s the worst footballing injury I’ve ever seen,” Dublin explains, solemnly. “If you clap your hands as loud as you can, that was the noise of his tibia. You couldn’t even draw the way his leg was. All this sawdust was put down on the pitch to try to get rid of the blood.”
Peter Schmeichel, the United goalkeeper, was sick on the pitch after seeing the injury and said it preyed on his mind for two years before meeting Busst to discuss the incident. “I speak to Peter about it – even now he still always asks how Boosie is. I can vividly remember Peter, Brian McClair and Denis Irwin, who had been closest to it, walking away in shock. I know those three had counselling after that.” Busst’s testimonial against United a year later was a sell-out. It would also be Cantona’s last game for the club before he announced his retirement two days later.
Thankfully, not all of Dublin’s recollections are sombre ones. He has never forgotten the generosity of a young Peter Crouch, whom he took under his wing at Villa, during a tour to Norway. A bunch of them were on a night out when they momentarily lost the big striker. “He’d seen a homeless person but instead of giving him some money he ended up taking off the Prada trainers he was wearing and took the man’s shoes in return. And then spends the rest of the night wearing these battered shoes full of holes. That was Crouchy for you.”
Forging a new career
Dublin has forged a highly successful post-playing career. Each time he moved to a new club he would buy a house in the area, keep them and before he knew it had acquired quite the property portfolio. The BBC cottoned on to this and decided to give him a screen test for Homes Under the Hammer. “They put me in an empty house in Salford with a cameraman and asked me to figure out what was wrong with it and what needed doing. I didn’t turn my back to the camera once, you know, all that kind of stuff and they said, ‘Yeah, we like it, there’s something here’.”
Dublin is now recognised more for his TV work than as an ex-footballer Credit: BBC
That was a decade ago and the show has introduced Dublin to a new audience. “I’ll go shopping with my wife and these older couples will walk by me, pause and go, ‘There’s that guy from the homes programme’.” He even went viral on social media a few years back when someone put together a compilation of what is now his catchphrase “the stairs going up to the bedrooms”. “I honestly didn’t realise I used to say it that much. It went mad after that. I love it.”
Music is one of the other big things in Dublin’s life and in February he will present a funk, soul and Motown night at Manchester’s Albert Hall featuring Fillet-O-Soul, which includes artists from Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and the Strictly Come Dancing band. His dad played the bass guitar right up until his death, aged 90, a couple of months ago, and his mum, a district nurse in the NHS for decades, played the mandolin. His sister Carmen played piano and all three brothers, Ash, Clem and Eddie Jr, were very musical. Dublin himself invented a percussion instrument he calls The Dube and still has about 300 of them he had professionally made in storage somewhere.
A dull life it has not been.
Dublin’s top 10 English strikers of the 90s
The 1990s was a golden era for English centre-forwards. Dublin was among them, one of only 20 Englishmen to score at least 100 Premier League goals.
Here, he picks his top 10 from that halcyon period. “In another era each of these players would probably have earned 100 England caps,” he said.
10. Dion Dublin
111 goals in 312 Premier League games – 0.36 average – for Manchester United, Coventry and Aston Villa
I genuinely believe if I’d been given the chance to play more for England I would have scored a lot of goals.There was maybe a slight prejudice towards the bigger names and bigger clubs because I spent four years at Coventry but it’s really hard to stake a claim for the No 9 shirt when you’re up against that bunch. What a group of strikers.
Dion Dublin scores for Aston Villa against Spurs Credit: Action Images
9. Chris Sutton
83/255 – 0.33 average – for Norwich, Blackburn, Chelsea, Birmingham and Aston Villa
Sutty is probably the striker who was most similar to me in this list. He played at centre-forward and centre-back and wasn’t really a flamboyant player but just got the job done time and again under the radar. He was unassuming. He scored a lot of goals but didn’t really shout about it. That SAS partnership with Shearer at Blackburn was lethal.
8. Stan Collymore
62/161 – 0.39 average – for Nottingham Forest, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Leicester and Bradford
You know what, if Stan had been able to apply all the traits that he had at the same time consistently and found that happy medium to his football and life, he’d have been the best out of any of these. He had everything. He could annihilate you. I really like Stan. There just wasn’t that awareness around mental health back then. It was very much, “Just f------ get on with it”.
7. Teddy Sheringham
146/418 – 0.35 average – for Nottingham Forest, Tottenham, Manchester United, Portsmouth and West Ham
Cultured, unfazed, pure vision. He was a cool footballer that just made it look so simple and easy and seemed to do everything in slow motion but always got it done. He’d prepared before the ball had even reached him and his touch was that good that he’d always gain a couple of seconds.
6. Les Ferdinand
149/351 – 0.42 average – for QPR, Newcastle, Tottenham, West Ham, Leicester City and Bolton
Les was the best header of the ball I’ve ever seen. He was only 5ft 11in but his leap, his bound from a standing jump was remarkable. So aggressive, so strong, so good. He was the reason I didn’t go to the 1998 World Cup!
5. Michael Owen
150/326 – 0.46 average – for Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester United and Stoke
I remember marking Owen for Villa at Anfield once and giving myself 15 yards – 15 yards – and we still got to the ball at the same time. It was blistering pace. He won the Ballon d’Or. That tells you everything.
4. Andy Cole
187/414 – 0.45 average – for Newcastle, Manchester United, Blackburn, Fulham, Manchester City and Portsmouth
I played at centre-back at times later in my career and I didn’t know how to mark him. He was possibly the hardest one of them all to mark – you never knew where he was. He’d never be in the same place. His movement was outstanding.
Dublin says Andy Cole was the hardest opponent to mark Credit: PA/Rui Vieira
3. Robbie Fowler
169/379 – 0.43 average – for Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester City
Robbie was amazing at making situations work for him. He was so calculated on the pitch. He’d measure things up and the next thing the ball is in the net.
2. Ian Wright
113/213 – 0.53 average – for Arsenal and West Ham
Wrighty is possibly the best finisher out of the entire lot and by that I mean the amount of different finishes he had in his armoury – left foot, right foot, headers, goals from impossible angles, incredible improvisation. He was so quick. He’s a brilliant person but he was a nasty b------ on the pitch!
1. Alan Shearer
260/441 – 0.59 average – for Blackburn and Newcastle
For the sheer amount of goals it has to be Alan first. I’m not saying he’s the best Premier League footballer, but to score that many at a time when there were so many top centre-half pairings was almost perverse.
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Robbie done him up beautifully in that game against Birmingham. Like a proper kipper.
Hard to argue with the top 9 anyway. Who else would be rivalling dion?
Fergusons casual racism towards Dion didnt help.
great read, top man
What did he say?
Talking about how big the mans penis was. Very unedifying.
Or complimentary…
Yes, not unlike how slave owners would compliment each other on who had the stronger servant.
Speaking of which, herself had eyes like organ stops at the scene in the house of Guinness where he’s being dressed.
“Oh my goodness, look at the size of that”
I havent watched it, but you’ve made it sound like unmissable tv.
Inside Ruben Amorim’s first year at Manchester United: Sharp words, hands-on coaching, and how players feel
Nov. 11, 2025Updated 8:25 am GMT
November 11 marks a year since Ruben Amorim touched down in England and headed to Carrington for his first day as Manchester United head coach.
It has been a tumultuous 12 months since, with several lows, some highs, and a recent glimmer of hope, but then again the atmosphere at the club he inherited was already turbulent.
Take, for instance, one episode, not reported before, of the dressing room in the immediate aftermath of United’s 3-3 draw away to Porto in the Europa League last October 3, when Erik ten Hag was still in charge.
Amorim arrives at Carrington on November 11, 2024Photo: Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images
Ten Hag was furious at a sloppy defensive display that saw United let a 2-0 lead slip, with defeat seeming inevitable, only for Harry Maguire to salvage a 3-3 draw by scoring in injury time. After the final whistle, concerned by United’s general form, Ten Hag let rip at his players in the bowels of the Estadio do Dragao, pressing home how they needed to change mentality and be disciplined on the pitch to find success. It was a long inquest.
When he had finished, senior members of the team, including Bruno Fernandes, stood up and requested Ten Hag and his assistants leave the dressing room so the players could have a debrief themselves. This was not that unusual. A similar episode came after the 2-0 loss to Newcastle United in April 2023, with Lisandro Martinez also vocal then. United, who had slipped after lifting the Carabao Cup, went on to win the next three Premier League games on the way to qualifying for the Champions League by finishing third.
In Porto, the mood was different, according to people familiar with what happened, who like others in this article were granted anonymity to speak freely. The coaching staff exited and the players discussed the situation. More than one took exception to the tone of Ten Hag’s criticism, among them Diogo Dalot, who stood up to make an impassioned speech using strong language. Dalot suggested to his team-mates they would have to summon performances, whatever some of them might feel about the manager.
Teams have reached unprecedented glory amid creative friction, notably when Claudio Ranieri led Leicester City to the Premier League title in 2016, even while experiencing major tension with his players, but this episode in Portugal signposted the terminus of Ten Hag’s reign.
United’s powerbrokers met at INEOS’ headquarters in Knightsbridge, London, five days after the Porto fixture, following Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s attendance at the 0-0 draw at Villa Park, and initiated the process of selecting a successor to Ten Hag.
They waited to pull the trigger until October 28, the day after United lost 2-1 at West Ham, at which point chief executive Omar Berrada headed back to Portugal, this time to Lisbon, to conclude talks with Sporting CP’s president Frederico Varandas over the hire of Amorim.
Anybody thinking Amorim would apply a lighter touch than Ten Hag was mistaken, however. The man who Cristiano Ronaldo once nicknamed The Poet can mix colourful imagery with brutal assessments. That much has been apparent in his press conferences, but behind closed doors, his honesty is sharper still.
Manuel Ugarte played for Amorim at Sporting between 2021 and 2023, but he was not given special treatment during the end-of-season meeting at Carrington that followed United’s Europa League final loss to Tottenham Hotspur. This was the gathering, the day before United faced Aston Villa in the final Premier League game, where Amorim told Alejandro Garnacho he would need a good agent during the summer window due to him remaining as head coach. That conflict was what attracted the headlines when details emerged.
Several players were on the receiving end, too, but Amorim had particularly pointed feedback for Ugarte, who he felt had let his work rate slide from their time together at Sporting. Amorim believed Ugarte had gotten comfortable and said he did not recognise him as the same player from their first stint together.
Criticising a former player in front of his team-mates certainly caused a ripple of reaction among those in the squad. It also showed them that Amorim was hard, but broadly fair, when it came to assessing application.
For those with longer memories, it called to mind how Sir Alex Ferguson would occasionally go after Ryan Giggs, who could withstand the invective, knowing that Nani, a less robust figure yet the real target, would also listen in and receive the message.
Amorim’s preference for delivering strong feedback in group settings, rather than one-on-one, has been the cause of conversations among players. The subject came up on United’s post-season tour, as several took the chance to chew the fat on the rooftop of the W Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Some players would like more tailored instructions. Amorim wants those on the fringes of selection to show him they deserve minutes in training sessions, rather than through face-to-face meetings.
Amorim likes to deliver his feedback to the groupPhoto: Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images
Fernandes is one player who does get solo time with Amorim, although this is often United’s captain going to his head coach. They have a two-way relationship, with Fernandes carrying on his role as de facto lieutenant of the squad, having first been given that responsibility by Ten Hag.
Amorim does not join players on social activities, instead keeping a distance on purpose to maintain a sense of authority.
Attempts to improve standards, in terms of professionalism and commitment, have been hallmarks of Amorim’s first year in charge, and he referenced as such in the all-staff meeting at Carrington that kicked off the new campaign. He cited players going out and being late for training as examples of bad discipline. Amorim’s consistent appearances at United’s company summits, together with his candour and passion, have been appreciated by employees.
Work was done in the transfer market to effect change to this end, and bringing in Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha — two established Premier League players with a love for football — lifted the mood and the quality of sessions significantly.
Amorim’s appointment of a six-man leadership group, featuring Fernandes, Maguire, Tom Heaton, Lisandro Martinez, Noussair Mazraoui and Dalot, was an effort to entrust the dressing room with disciplinary and other matters.
At the heart of Amorim’s tenure has, of course, been his switch in formation to a back three. United hired him in full knowledge he would use a 3-4-2-1 system, but that recalibration is still being worked through at Carrington.
Although Amorim would stand at a distance when the cameras rolled for 15-minute open sessions ahead of Europa League ties last season, he often manhandled his players into position when the real coaching got under way. He still does now.
Typically, one day each week contains the work of a full matchPhoto: Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images
Shadow drills, when a team is lined up as if to play but there is no opposition, are a regular feature, with Amorim kicking the ball into certain areas and getting his players to move accordingly.
He wants his team to rotate as one and know instinctively when and where to go, and he has physically shifted players one or two yards if not quite right. These types of sessions were tough to squeeze into a packed fixture schedule last season, but there are free midweeks this campaign and they have become more frequent.
Typically, one day each week contains the work of a full match, to try to keep fitness levels up. A recovery day follows. It should help prepare the players for the physical rhythm of being in European competition next season, while at the same time enabling more control and less travelling than trips to the continent would allow.
A frequent drill, as Amorim embeds his team shape, is defence versus attack, five-v-five, with one team trying to score into a full-sized goal and three smaller nets at the other end. Amorim will stop the practice if players are not in the correct positions.
Wilcox speaks regularly with AmorimPhoto: Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images
Still, some players have wondered whether the system suits the team. Jason Wilcox, who rose from technical director to director of football over the past year, after Dan Ashworth departed as sporting director, has held discussions with Amorim on the formation. Wilcox is known to like the 4-3-3 that brought Manchester City dominance. He has a strong relationship with Amorim and the pair speak daily. Wilcox watches training on the touchlines at Carrington.
Amorim has said his system will evolve over time, when he is ready, and he has laid out his team in a 4-3-3 for parts of some sessions, but this is mainly to embed understanding for certain phases of play during matches. He has said not even the Pope could get him to deviate from his back-three starting point. He would doubtless feel that too much has been made of his tactical approach, and other factors, such as quality and energy, have at various times let down the performances.
More recently, there have been moments when the attacking potential of Amorim’s “idea”, as it is often referred to, has been displayed, most potently with Mbeumo and Amad linking down the right. It would be hard to get them both in the team otherwise.
There is a theory from some people close to the club that, as well as Amorim feeling the 3-4-2-1 is the strategy that will transport United back to the biggest silverware, he could not have changed before now because if he had and results picked up, it would have suggested the formation was the problem all along.
Other people sense Amorim’s assistants might have done better to translate his vision to the players. Carlos Fernandes, Adelio Candido and Emanuel Ferro all came with Amorim from Sporting, where they won two Portuguese titles after a 19-year drought for the club. Fernandes is 30 and Candido, who started out as an analyst, is 29, and though they have coaching credentials, their youth has been raised as a hurdle to knowing the nuances of getting buy-in from players. Similar was, though, said of Kieran McKenna as a United coach before he led Ipswich Town to promotion to the Premier League. Fernandes, who leads sessions and drills set pieces, is regarded by executives as talented.
People familiar with Amorim’s thinking feel he believes his staff communicate very well and there is a good distribution of responsibilities between them. He sees them as a huge part of his success as a coach, which is why he included them in the photograph of him winning Premier League manager of the month for October.
Amorim poses with his United coaching staff, from left: Paulo Barreira, Eduardo Rosalino, Jorge Vital, Carlos Fernandes, Adelio Candido, Craig Mawson and Emanuel FerroPhoto: Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images
Amorim appeared to be alluding to the training ground dynamic when he said in the aftermath of losing to League Two Grimsby Town in the Carabao Cup that the players “spoke really loud”. He added: “If we don’t show up, you can feel that something has to change and you are not going to change 22 players again.”
Bringing attention to his position followed on from him contemplating a departure when results spiralled last season, as he acknowledged during an interview in Chicago while on United’s pre-season tour.
Amorim has been more consistent this season about staying long-term, and those who know him believe that after the Grimsby loss, he might have been trying to say he had nothing to offer to the media because his team had said it all. Taking their opponents for granted was an accusation that could be levelled at United that night.
The 3-0 loss to City compounded the mood, but beating Chelsea on September meant the hierarchy had something to grasp when seeing Ferguson for the first football board meeting of the INEOS era. Held at Old Trafford on the Thursday following the win over Enzo Maresca’s side, Berrada, Wilcox, and chief financial officer Roger Bell presented to Ferguson, David Gill and Michael Edelson in their capacity as non-executive directors. A surprise attendee was Amorim himself, in a sign of the backing from above and his desire to communicate with key figures from United’s history.
United’s football board is a ceremonial construct these days — the big decisions are taken at plc level — but keeping Ferguson and Gill updated is considered internally as a shrewd move. Support for Amorim from those in charge was clear, even as United reeled from the defeats at Blundell Park and the Etihad, with Berrada and Wilcox highlighting underlying data that showed reasons to be optimistic.
Two days later, Brentford arrived like a sledgehammer, but the wins over Sunderland, Liverpool, and Brighton breathed the first bit of momentum into Amorim’s reign, while the draws at Nottingham Forest and Tottenham Hotspur point at promise, but also problems still to resolve.
It can be revealed that broadcasters TNT were going to tap into the fascination around United’s form by inviting Frank Ilett, the man behind the United Strand social media account, to be part of their coverage for the Spurs game. Since last year, he has been growing his hair, and gaining a following, vowing only to cut it once United win five games in a row.
This time 12 months ago, Amorim arrived with United 14th in the table, on 11 points from nine games and a goal difference of -3. Now, they sit seventh with 18 points from 11 games and a goal difference of +1.
In between, Amorim certainly brought headlines. There has been Marcus Rashford’s exile, a damaged dressing-room television, the forcing out of Rasmus Hojlund, a 15th-place finish for the “worst team in history”, and a thousand-yard stare in Bilbao.
Although they have ceded the running of the club to Ratcliffe, the Glazer family, United’s majority owners, are involved at the top level, with monthly executive committee meetings a way for Joel and Avram, the two most engaged siblings, to get updates. Their lesser-spotted brother Bryan was at Anfield, sitting close by Ferguson and Sir Kenny Dalglish, for United’s recent win.
Bryan Glazer, wearing the red tie, takes in United’s win over LiverpoolPhoto by Carl Recine/Getty Images
Meanwhile, Ed, another of the siblings, gave a rare insight into their thinking during a talk at the Kogod School of Business six months ago. He was asked about the sacking of Ten Hag and the appointment of Amorim.
“It starts with winning and losing,” he said. “You have to say to yourself, ‘Are we on the right track? Do we feel like what we’re currently doing is working?’.
“It’s not any different from you as a fan. I always say, if you want to know the best players, ask the fans. They’re in the seats every week and they know the positives and negatives of every single player. I have to imagine there are times you’ve sat there and thought, ‘This isn’t working, we gotta make a change’. Sometimes you make a change and it doesn’t work, sometimes you make a change and it does.
“But you also have to be patient; it doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t matter how much money you spend, it’s about identifying talent and having patience. Sometimes you can be patient and it still doesn’t work.
“In Manchester, I think we’re in that mode where we’ve turned the page recently, and now we have to be a little patient and give everybody the opportunity to put together their vision of what success is going to be. The next couple of years are going to be very telling. We hope to be back where we should be.”
Despite his occasional soul-bearing statements, Amorim does understand the responsibility that comes with being the face of the club. He laid down a rule that half his squad must sign autographs for fans outside Old Trafford before the game, and half after, as too many had come to ignore them. As it has happened, most players do it upon entering the stadium.
Amorim himself has stayed late after final whistles to pose for pictures, and he carries his charm into other encounters on club business. He recently eased a four-year-old girl’s nerves on her visit to Carrington by starting small talk and handing her a shirt to hold in front of the cameras.
Forming a bomb squad of five players in Rashford, Garnacho, Antony, Jadon Sancho and Tyrell Malacia was a ruthless move, but when the transfer window closed, he did canvass opinions on Malacia, the only one who stayed. Players spoke in favour of Malacia’s reintegration to first-team training, and Amorim heeded that feedback, with the Dutchman even making the bench against Brighton.
United’s injury record is much improved, and while that can be attributable to one game per week, as Amorim has accepted, his refusal to select players at risk is a factor. Despite initially not wanting to come to United mid-season, Amorim learned valuable details about the club and his squad in that time.
United’s general direction is upwards, as this graph detailing the team’s expected goals for and against over time shows. There is still work to do to reach the highs of Ten Hag’s tenure in his first season, but the blue of a positive difference has been more obvious after long periods of the red negative, which brought about a change in manager.
Qualifying for Europe is the priority, and is essential, really, in a campaign where all focus is on the Premier League. The condensed nature of the division suggests a Champions League place is possible should United really click.
Whatever the final outcome, after being in the news for various reasons, including the departure of Ashworth, a second round of redundancies, fan protests, the launch of a new stadium, and Ratcliffe landing his helicopter at Carrington for meetings, United would doubtless welcome a smoother, more successful 12 months ahead.
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He did wind him nicely but from memory Villa were already beaten by then so why wouldn’t you headbutt Robbie.
He was in discussion with the then Villa manager John Gregory and mentioned his appendage. John Gregory then said you obviously haven’t seen Michael Oakes’s appendage. Michael was a goalkeeper at Villa around the time. Michael was a white man with a big lad allegedly. It was Gregory repeated the story from memory