Man Utd legend Paul Scholes reckons Ruben Amorim wants to get rid of as many as 14 players at Old Trafford as soon as possible.
The Red Devils have had a terrible season so far with their fortunate 1-0 win over Fulham on Sunday pushing Ruben Amorim’s side one place up the Premier League table to 12th.
Amorim has inherited a squad from Erik ten Hag full of underperforming stars and players unable to fit into his 3-4-3 formation, playing style and philosophy.
And Scholes fears that Amorim has a bigger job on his hands at Man Utd than Mikel Arteta did when arriving at Arsenal in 2019.
Matteo Guendouzi, Mesut Ozil and Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang all left shortly after Arteta arrived at the Emirates Stadium and Amorim appears to be trying to do the same at Man Utd with Marcus Rashford after deeming his training displays unacceptable.
But when it was put to Scholes that Amorim could be attempting to copy Arteta, the Man Utd legend said on The Overlap: “The trouble Amorim’s got is there’s not just three of them. You could be talking about 13 or 14 of them he doesn’t want.”
And Man Utd could be set to add their first new face to Amorim’s squad soon with transfer expert Fabrizio Romano insisting that a deal for Lecce wing-back Patrick Dorgu is ‘getting closer’.
Romano wrote on X: ‘Manchester United and Lecce are in direct contact again right now for Patrick Dorgu. Deal getting closer for €36/37m package and parties still confident to get the agreement done. Dorgu wants the move, five year deal ready at Man United — agreed also on agents side.’
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Former Man Utd winger Lee Sharpe has urged the Red Devils to sign another striker after Rasmus Hojlund‘s poor display against Fulham with Joshua Zirkzee currently “doing a better job” than the Dane.
Sharp told Texas Poker: “I think Rasmus Hojlund has really struggled. Against Fulham, he was wrestling players, he wasn’t getting hold of the ball and when he tried to lay it off, he just ended up giving it away. I watched Joshua Zirkzee play in the same position recently and thought he held the ball up well and brought in players a lot better than Hojlund did – he sees passes with one and two touches that I don’t think Hojlund sees at the moment.
“I know Zirkzee isn’t an ‘out and out’ number nine, but I still think he’s doing a better job than what Hojlund does at the moment.
“It can be argued that Hojlund takes the brunt of the criticism when his team are not playing well and not scoring goals, but when the team isn’t performing then the first thing you need your centre-forward to do is hold the ball up well to allow other players to get into the game. He’s just not doing the basics right at the moment – I know it’s difficult for him up there on his own, but he does need to do better.
“I think the club have to sign another striker. Considering the amount of games each team has to play each season and the nature of running the channels for 90 minutes all the time, they should definitely look to bring in another forward so players like Hojlund can share that burden.”
