Ruben Amorim was scolded by Man Utd star stuns teammates during a squad meeting

And The Athletic say that Ugarte was given a dressing-down by his manager in a meeting the day before United played Aston Villa in their final match of last season. The meeting at Carrington came just a few days after the Europa League final loss to Tottenham in Bilbao.

Alejandro Garnacho was reprimanded and told he needed a “good agent” for the summer transfer window, after which Amorim told Ugarte in no uncertain terms that he felt the midfielder’s work rate had declined compared to their time together in Portugal. The manager accused the South American of getting too comfortable at United.

The 40-year-old head coach also declared that he did not recognise Ugarte as the same player from their previous stint together. Such criticism, in front of his team-mates, left the squad stunned but also stressed to them that their boss demands certain application and effort. The players are thought to believe Amorim was hard but broadly fair in his assessment

Ugarte has struggled for form even this season and was partly culpable for both goals United conceded against Tottenham in their dramatic 2-2 Premier League draw at the weekend.

United icon Wayne Rooney has questioned Amorim over the decision to take Casemiro off for Ugarte at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. He said: “He [Casemiro] hasn’t got a game next week, has he? It’s the international break. So yeah, unless he was physically really tired or had a knock, we don’t know. But, yeah, he probably should have kept him on.

“And as a manager, when you’re making changes, you hope they pay off – because obviously when they do, it’s great, and everyone turns around saying, “Oh, that was a great decision. But sometimes they don’t, and so it’s a big thing.”

Amorim reacted: “We have a lot of problems, we are just in the beginning. I know sometimes the results show people that we are improving: we are improving but we have a lot to do.

“We were comfortable in the game but I think we should do better, be more aggressive, feeling the environment in the stadium and that the three points were there, the space was there.

“I think we felt too comfortable during the game. We need to expect that in one play anything can happen and change the mood of the stadium, and today was that. We need to do better because the game was there to take.”