Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim has responded to club legend Gary Neville after his “fair” criticism of his side’s performance against Manchester City.
The Red Devils are enduring a woeful season as they are languishing in the bottom half of the Premier League table with seven matches remaining.
Amorim has struggled since replacing Erik ten Hag as his squad is not suited to his preferred 3-4-3 formation, but they have arguably made gradual improvements in recent weeks.
Over the weekend, Man Utd earned a 0-0 draw in the Manchester derby at Old Trafford. After the match, Neville hit out at each side as he was “disappointed”.
“They’re micromanaged within an inch of their lives – so robotic, that game – and quite symptomatic, actually, of a lot of games that we’re watching nowadays,” Neville said on Sky Sports.
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“It’s not good enough. I feel disappointed.
“It’s a Manchester derby and it should have more blood, thunder, and risk, and courage involved in playing the game and trying to win the game than that.”
Now, Amorim admits Neville’s comments were “fair” as he “understands what he’s saying”.
“In this game, they are seeing the games and in our moment, with the season that we are doing, we have to accept it and this is quite fair,” Amorim told Sky Sports.
“Sometimes at the end of the game, you don’t like it because you are trying really hard to change things and they are talking about your players.
“But then, one day later, you can understand. It’s fair and I understand what he’s saying.”
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Explaining Man Utd’s recent woes, Amorim claimed it’s important for current sides to be “good” in their “base” and they “need time” to adapt.
“The game is completely different and you have to be so good in your base and then that individual aspect and the freedom and the fluidity of the game is going to appear. But, for that, I think we need time,” Amorim added.
“There was an evolution, you can like it or not, but there was an evolution because you have all the games from the opponent’s detail, from your departments, so you can understand better the movements that they make.
“In that evolution, you have to be better tactically. Sometimes I talk to [Darren] Fletcher, about how he prepared the games with Sir Alex Ferguson, it’s completely different.
“There was more a feeling, that aspect of the individual talent. I think today is not enough and you can see some of the best teams, especially if you remember the years of Galacticos, they had maybe the best players in the world, but you need to have a connection.”
