“I’m hoping he’s injured for Amorim” – Neville lambasts ‘bizarre’ Man Utd substitution

Gary Neville was left perplexed by Ruben Amorim’s decision to replace Joshua Zirkzee at half-time as Manchester United settled for a disappointing draw against Wolves.The Red Devils hosted the Premier League’s ultimate whipping boys in their final fixture of 2025. But deprived of the services of some of their finest players, MUFC put on an underwhelming showing.Zirkzee lifted the mood at Old Trafford by scoring the opener, albeit with a lucky deflection, but the team couldn’t keep the lead until the half-time whistle, as Ladislav Krjeci headed home the equaliser in the dying embers of the first period.Gary Neville bewildered by Ruben Amorim’s decision to haul out Joshua Zirkzee(Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)After the break, Amorim tried to shake things off by switching his formation from 3-4-3 to 4-2-3-1, introducing Jack Fletcher in place of Zirkzee, whose exit was met with an ‘odd cheer’ from a section of the Man Utd supporters.However, this change didn’t pay off, as Man Utd weren’t able to find a winner, and they ended up dropping points against a side that had only registered two points from their previous 18 fixtures.Therefore, Neville was far from impressed with the Portuguese tactician, arguing that the latter had no reason to hook Zirkzee, especially having already scored a goal.“They (the substitutions) made Manchester United worse. Every single substitution was bizarre,” said the former United captain who was on punditry duty at Sky Sports.“If Zirkzee wasn’t injured and that was a tactical substitution, it was a really poor one. Zirkzee isn’t Eric Cantona, by any stretch of the imagination, but he needed to be out there for physicality, for presence, for experience.“And he’d scored. You couldn’t take him off. I’m hoping he’s injured for Ruben Amorim.” 🚨🗣️ Gary Neville: “They made Manchester United worse. Every single substitution was bizarre. If Zirkzee wasn’t injured and that was a tactical substitution, it was a really poor one. Zirkzee isn’t Eric Cantona, by any stretch of the imagination, but he needed to be out there… pic.twitter.com/jYLcCRdSPQ — UtdXclusive (@UtdXclusive) December 31, 2025Why Amorim replaced Zirkzee with Jack FletcherAfter the contest, Amorim explained this particular decision by arguing that his team needed an additional presence in the middle of the park, as he felt his men were being outnumbered.“We need to do what the game was asking. They (Wolves) put a lot of men in the middle of the park, and with Jack we balanced that,” said the Man Utd manager in his pre-match press conference via the Manchester Evening News.“I think we recovered the ball faster in the second half. In the first half, we struggled a little bit to recover the ball.While Fletcher’s introduction may have balanced things out in midfield, Man Utd didn’t create as many chances as one would expect from a team chasing a result, especially considering their opponents’ struggles.MUFC are now 6th in the standings with 30 points, but they could drop a few places by the end of the matchday, depending on other results.