Amorim concedes time is a luxury he cannot afford at Milan
Ahead of the Europa League trip to RB Salzburg, Ruben Amorim says he no longer expects patience at Milan and must simply start winning games.
Ruben Amorim has admitted that modern football gives a coach at AC Milan almost no room to build, saying it is "impossible to have a lot of time" to work before results are demanded, even as he insists the club cannot dwell on last week's defeat to Benfica.
The Portuguese coach spoke to Sky Sport Italia before Thursday's Europa League trip to RB Salzburg, a fixture Milan approach under growing scrutiny after a 2-0 home loss to Benfica in the Champions League and performances in Serie A that have done little to settle nerves around the San Siro, according to Football Italia.
Why Amorim is shutting out the noise
Amorim told reporters he deliberately avoids newspapers and television coverage of his own team, a method aimed at protecting his focus rather than denying the pressure exists. "I don't read papers or watch TV, so that I can focus on my work," he said, adding that scrutiny is "normal at a big club" at the start of a new project.
That framing matters. Amorim is not disputing that he is under pressure; he is choosing which parts of it to engage with. His own description of the job, that patience has effectively disappeared from the modern game and that only wins buy time, reads less like a complaint than an acknowledgment of the terms he signed up for at a club of Milan's stature.
The approach also serves a practical purpose with his squad. By his own account, several of his players arrived from Serie B and are adjusting to an environment where, in his words, even a draw becomes a major drama. Shielding them from the surrounding noise is as much about managing the dressing room as managing his own headspace.
Salzburg is not a game to take lightly
Milan travel to the Red Bull Arena to face a Salzburg side that opened its Europa League campaign with a 1-0 win away to Levski Sofia and will host its first group fixture with confidence. Amorim rejected any suggestion that the competition ranks below Milan's other priorities, insisting every match carries the same weight regardless of trophy.
His assessment of the opponent was specific rather than generic. He described Salzburg as technically strong and said Milan would need to match their physical intensity and win the individual duels in transition, a detail that points to a team expected to press and counter quickly rather than sit back.
Given the Benfica defeat came in the same competition structure, at home, the away trip to Austria carries added significance. A poor result would deepen the narrative of a side struggling for rhythm across two fronts, domestic and European, at a time when Amorim has already conceded that results are the only currency that buys him breathing room.
The Camarda question signals a wider rotation plan
Goncalo Ramos has started all seven of Milan's matches so far this season, but Amorim confirmed Francesco Camarda is training well and will get another opportunity, without committing to whether the young forward starts against Salzburg. He was explicit that Camarda will receive more minutes from this point onward.
That is a meaningful shift in itself. A manager under pressure to win immediately would ordinarily lean toward the safer, more established option up front. Amorim's willingness to open the door for Camarda suggests either genuine competition in training or a deliberate attempt to manage a long season with a packed fixture list, something he underlined when he said Milan "have a lot of games and will need everyone."
He offered similar praise for Christian Comotto, again framing both players' progress in the context of adapting from a lower division to the demands of a club where scrutiny is constant. Amorim stopped short of promising regular involvement for either, saying only that squad depth will be tested and that rotation will depend partly on form and partly, in his words, on luck.
The next fixture will offer an early test of how that balance plays out. A positive result in Salzburg would ease some of the pressure Amorim has openly acknowledged; a repeat of the Benfica performance would sharpen questions about how much time he genuinely has left to shape the project he described as only just beginning.