Man Utd pre-season: Six things to look out for as Ruben Amorim looks to get Red Devils back on track

Real Madrid, Arsenal, Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund were some of the teams Manchester United faced in their last two pre-season tours of the United States. Their opponents for their upcoming jaunt to the USA are a little less glamorous: West Ham United, Everton and Bournemouth.

The contrast in calibre of opponents says a lot about how much United have fallen in stature, particularly on the global stage. Indeed, most of the teams United see themselves as competing against are not visiting the US at all this year. Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham and Newcastle are all touring Asia, while Chelsea and مانشستر سيتي have already been across the pond to compete at the Club كأس العالم.

It is not just United’s pre-season fixtures which lack inspiration. The club have been very slow to act in the transfer market, only announcing the arrival of Matheus Cunha and confirming the pre-agreed deal for Paraguayan teenager Diego Leon. The expected signing of Bryan Mbeumo has stalled, while there has been even bleaker news over shifting players.

Despite the general lack of buzz, the next month is crucial for United as they prepare to make amends for last season, which Ruben Amorim openly admitted was "a disaster".

The Red Devils kick off their run of pre-season friendlies on Saturday against Leeds in Stockholm before heading off to the States to take part in the summer series. They will face West Ham at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, later meet Bournemouth at Soldier Field in Chicago before ending their tour against Everton at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Then, it’s back to Old Trafford for one final friendly against David de Gea’s Fiorentina before beginning the campaign with a daunting opening fixture at home to Arsenal.

Here are six things to look out for as Amorim and his squad get to work…

The contrast in calibre of opponents says a lot about how much United have fallen in stature, particularly on the global stage. Indeed, most of the teams United see themselves as competing against are not visiting the US at all this year. Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham and Newcastle are all touring Asia, while Chelsea and Manchester City have already been across the pond to compete at the Club World Cup.

Despite the general lack of buzz, the next month is crucial for United as they prepare to make amends for last season, which Ruben Amorim openly admitted was “a disaster”.

Here are six things to look out for as Amorim and his squad get to work…

Andre Onana was on thin ground when he reported for pre-season training, with his status as United’s No. 1 being debated after a second unconvincing campaign. Less than a week later, he injured his hamstring while training, ruling him out of their first few games of the pre-season, if not the whole set of warm-up fixtures.

The injury presents a big problem for United because while Onana has his many critics, the other options between the sticks are even less convincing. Altay Bayindir has made headlines for the wrong reasons in nearly every game he has played and it is thought he wants to leave the club in search of more regular football. Third-choice goalkeeper Tom Heaton, meanwhile, is 39 and has not played a first team match since February 2023.

Amorim could use the games to blood youngsters Elyh Harrison (19), Radek Vitek (21) or Dermot Mee (22), and there is an outside chance the club could enter the transfer market for a goalkeeper. It is far from an ideal situation for the club, who thought they wouldn’t have to worry about the position after signing Onana from Inter for £47 million ($63m) just two years ago.

Cunha has been heralded as a transformative signing and all eyes will be on him throughout pre-season and when the proper campaign begins. Chief executive Omar Berrada has already compared him to Eric Cantona, while the 26-year-old, who was born the day after United completed the treble in 1999, has also been given the prestigious No. 10 shirt -, taking it from Marcus Rashford before the England striker has even found a new club.

Cunha has made all the right noises since United paid his £62.5m buy-out clause to prise him from Wolves, revealing how he used to watch the Red Devils at his grandmother’s house, and wearing the club’s shirt while playing football with friends back in his hometown over the summer. Now, he must make a strong impression on the pitch.

It is no secret that Cunha has a fierce will to win which has landed him in trouble in the recent past, so he must make sure that he channels his massive personality in the right way and gets on the right side of his new team-mates. He also has the talismanic quality that United need so badly, which should make him so compelling to watch.

Most coaches who had presided over a club’s worst season in 51 years would go into the next campaign under a cloud of uncertainty but Amorim paradoxically still exerts a lot of authority, as he has done from day one. He cast the homegrown Rashford out of the squad barely a month after taking charge and has since told Alejandro Garnacho, one of the few attacking talents left in the squad, that he too has to go.

The coach also appears to be having a big say in United’s transfer policy, as they are primarily targeting players who have already proven themselves in the Premier League and who have experience playing in a 3-4-2-1 formation. It will be interesting to see how the players respond to him and if there will be any more personality clashes. This, after all, is a coach who smashed a television after a defeat to Brighton and described his team as one of the worst in United’s history.

Amorim must be looking forward to the pre-season campaign as his team are still a long way from getting to grips with his desired style of play. It is also an opportunity for him to raise the fitness levels of the squad, which he soon realised were way below a lot of teams in the league. The fact United will come up against four Premier League teams over the next month should benefit the coach. But it also adds some pressure, as a bad run of results in pre-season will not bode well for when the real action begins.

Rasmus Hojlund looked like a spent force towards the end of last season. He scored just three goals in the 34 matches between December and May and at times it felt like he couldn’t wait for the campaign to come to an end. Even the post-season tour of Asia was a nightmare for the hapless Dane as he failed to score against ASEAN All Stars or Hong Kong and then watched as the 17-year-old Chido Obi fired United to a comeback win after replacing him in the latter game.

Gary Neville described Hojlund as being “shot” during his 21-game goal drought and his confidence looked to be on the floor for much of the season. His state of mind will not have been helped by reports of United searching for another centre-forward and looking at the likes of Hugo Ekitike, Liam Delap, Moise Kean and Ollie Watkins.

Hojlund’s last two summers at United have been traumatic affairs. A back injury prevented him from going on the pre-season tour of 2023 just after his big-money move from Atalanta, while he injured his hamstring in the opening match of last year’s US tour against Arsenal. A promising and injury-free pre-season could be the start of him finally realising his potential and paying back his £72m transfer fee. Equally, if he fails to fire and has a miserable time in the States, either he or the club might look to hasten his departure.

It is highly unlikely that Rashford or Garnacho will appear in any of the pre-season games as they continue their search for a new club, along with fellow unwanted wingers Jadon Sancho and Antony. But the longer they go without finding new destinations, the bigger the distraction they will cause Amorim.

The coach will have plenty of media commitments during the tour and the situations of the United outcasts, in particular Rashford and Garnacho as he personally forced them out, will inevitably be hot topics for reporters to broach.

More pressing, though, is the fact that Amorim needs United to sell the quartet (and Tyrell Malacia) to boost his transfer budget as his rebuild is far from complete. The sooner they leave, the better.

Despite being marked as for sale at the right price as far back as December, Kobbie Mainoo is set to remain at United and he has not given Amorim anything like the headaches caused by Garnacho. The England international, however, does not have a clear role in Amorim’s team and arguably never has done.

He was played in a variety of roles in the first two months of the Portuguese’s reign, including as a false nine against Crystal Palace with terrible results. But since returning from an eight week spell out injured, he barely featured at all.

Mainoo started four of the remaining 12 matches in all competitions, only starting when Amorim rotated his squad in preparation for the big Europa League games. And when it came to the all-or-nothing final against Tottenham, Mainoo did not get on until the 90th minute.

Mainoo was a crucial player for England at Euro 2024 and a cornerstone of Erik ten Hag’s side so it is a bit of mystery that Amorim does not seem to rate him. The pre-season, therefore, is a big opportunity both for Amorim to assess where Mainoo can be most useful to him and for the player to show his boss what he is made of.