Ruben Amorim says he does not know what the future holds for Marcus Rashford.
Speaking at the pre-match presser before Sunday’s match against Fulham, he was asked whether the England man would be staying or leaving and replied:
“I don’t know. I really don’t know … Guys, it’s eight days. We will see in the end of the window what happened. And then we will talk about that in the moment.”
He was also asked about the public perception of Bruno Fernandes, who scored the injury time winner against Rangers yesterday. He said:
“We are lucky to have a player like Bruno Fernandes! Sometimes he makes mistakes.. like me last week. But he is really important and he has passion and this is so important to be a football player.
“I think he’s a top player and then people talk a lot about his frustration, always with his arms in the air. Sometimes it’s not a good thing to see but you have to see the other side.
“When you are under pressure, he’s always the guy that wants the ball, he’s always available. And that is so important. Especially in the Premier League.”
Another question posed was whether there is, for him, a clear first choice goalkeeper between Andre Onana and Altay Bayindir.
“It’s always an even fight but this was rotation, was prepared… To have two really good goalkeepers, they need time to play,” he responded.
The head coach was also asked when Luke Shaw will return to the side after a lengthy injury.
“He’s going to be fit to train with the team,” he replied.
“And then we have to start doing small minutes, we don’t have a lot of time to train, we have to put in some exercises in ten minutes, then he has to make extra work to improve his fitness, so I don’t know. It’s two weeks to start training and to start thinking about putting him in a few minutes.”
On potential injuries to Leny Yoro and Matthijs de Ligt ahead of Sunday’s game, Amorim said:
“I don’t know. Leny has a pain, also Mattha, I think was a bruise, a touch. Leny was a little bit tired, he’s playing more in this moment so we have to be really careful. We’ll see. I don’t know.”
Another question related to Casemiro and why he was not being selected to play.
“He has to be the characteristics and then I have to choose the player with characteristics that I see the game,” the boss answered.
“So it’s just that. I have to make some choices. I want to play a style of game that is sometimes different from other coaches and I have to choose based on that.”
Amorim was also asked what he needs to do to turn United around.
“Pre-season, creating, spending three weeks together, creating something, and then you want to create something new with the players,” he said.
“I want them to know me in a different way, not always preparing the matches with stress, we don’t have the time to do that. I think it’s really important and I think it’s the secret of teams. Even when you have the best players, if you don’t you have that feeling it’s really hard to win so I want to build something like that here. But we need time from that.
“It also depends on the leader, on the coach, a lot like that. I think we need that to get that feeling of belonging. For that, we also need time to train, because to stay together and that is really important.”
Featured image Alex Livesey via Getty Images
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Red Billy
Red Billy is the managing editor of The Peoples Person, author of three books and totally obsessed with football’s transfer market. Billy still insists Matteo Darmian and Alex Telles could have made it at United given half a chance.
