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After reaching the Europa League final on Thursday, Manchester United’s focus will now shift back to the Premier League as they prepare to take on West Ham on Sunday.
The club’s league form has been extremely disappointing, with the Red Devils languishing in 15th place in the league standings.
And Ruben Amorim has rightly come under fire for overlooking the league for Europa success, with Roy Keane going in on Amorim’s approach in a recent podcast.
The head coach agreed with the criticism and revealed that United should have done better but for now, the focus will be on trying to win the final against Tottenham Hotspur.
On criticism for prioritising Europa League over Premier League
“Yeah, we are trying to do our best but I agree. We can do better. And, again, I don’t have anything to say about the criticism because we deserve it. If we cannot accept everything in this kind of season, I think we are in the wrong business, and I have full acknowledgement of that.
“I agree with all the critics but, in this moment, I think it’s really clear and we have to be smart. We have to take a risk and we have to take the risk to get a lot of criticisms from everybody because the standards of Roy Keane and all of these guys are really high.
“But I have to make a choice. What is the best for the club not what is the best for me. I make a choice in this moment [that] I’m going to try to save all the players because it’s really important for us to win the final.”
There are three league games left and Amorim made it clear that he wants to win all the remaining games. He will also try and ask the players to focus on the games at hand instead of thinking of the final in Bilbao.
“Again, we cannot save anything from the Premier League. But I think it’s a good thing for them as we’ll not have a lot of trainings. They will fight for the places in the final in these games.
On avoiding injury before final
“I think, against Brentford, we had some mistakes that I felt some of our players were thinking about this game [against Athletic Club]. So we have to manage that but we also have to acknowledge that we are Manchester United and we need to win games, also in the Premier League, and we have to use every game to improve, even to prepare for the final, but, especially, to prepare for the future.”
There is always a risk of injury before the final and Amorim will try and ensure no untoward incident happens in games as well as in training while also making sure to manage player loads very carefully.
“No, they will play because sometimes it’s better to play. What I will protect is the players that can get an injury. For example, Bruno, or the last game before Tottenham but we moved the game to the Friday against Chelsea.
“So we’ll have time to recover. We want to win and to be competitive, also in the Premier League. Bruno doesn’t have the problem of any injury [touches wood] but Harry has. So we have to manage that but they have to play and it is better to play than to stay out.
“I don’t know. I expect, for example, like I said, some players we have some doubts that they will recover. They will push forward a little bit and we have to manage that and not take the risk and to have big issues.
“Of course, they will fight for the places, they will be really excited and that is a good thing, not just for the final but also to prepare for the games of the Premier League with something in our mind that we can win, it is going to be massive.
Transfer plans
“I don’t have that in me. I always push forward but, of course, I will try to manage everything. They don’t need a lot of load now so that the trainings are going to be soft in that department. But, of course, they will push each other.”
Questions were asked about Amorim’s transfer plans in the summer and he was clear that attacking midfield was an area that he looking to improve as he seeks the right profiles for his system.
He also made it clear that a miracle cannot be expected in only one window and that he will try and improve the players he has.
“No, I will not share too much. But you can understand the characteristics; when I say characteristics, it is players that play more inside than outside, those small things, even the foot.
“It’s really important in the position that Garna [Alejandro Garnacho] played today, as a right 10, to have a left foot. It can change the way you play. To have some wingers that are more offensive than defensive, that can change the way we play.
Asia Tour
“So these kind of things that we are going to try to do in the future but it is going to take time. It’s not going to be one summer or whatever. So I was just talking about that and then the weaknesses, you can see the game. We have so many problems, even winning these kind of games. You can see during the game, we have a lot of things to improve.”
As for the post-season tour of Asia, the Portuguese made it clear that he will be taking all the senior stars with him and he understood the club’s logic behind accepting these games in spite of a busy calendar.
Amorim feels this will help the players apologise to fans while also connecting with fans worldwide.
“Yes, so I was consulted and, again, I already spoke about that. We cannot say nothing after this season, so we need to help the club because the club wins some more money. We are going to connect with our fans around the world and that is important, especially when we lose and we disappoint our supporters during this tough season.
“So I think it is the least we can do. And we are going to take all the team, the young kids also, and we’ll have the staff there. We had a lot of changes in the staff so we’re trying to build something as a family. I think it is also a good thing.”
Feature image Richard Heathcote via Getty Images
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