Ruben Amorim makes stern demand of United star amidst strong January exit rumours

Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim has issued a demand to winger Alejandro Garnacho, insisting he needs to learn to play better in a relatively new role for him.

Garnacho has started only five of Amorim’s 13 games at the helm of United and was dropped from the match-day squad for the derby victory over Manchester City.

There have been suggestions that United are willing to sell Garnacho, sparking the interest of Napoli, who have identified the Argentine as the perfect replacement for Khvicha Kvarataskhelia.

Garnacho has mostly played as a left-sided winger for United but he’s been forced to adjust to an unfamiliar position in Amorim’s 3-4-3 formation as one of two No.10s behind the striker.

Speaking in the embargoed section of his press conference ahead of United’s Premier League meeting with Southampton on Thursday, Amorim was asked whether he sees Garnacho as having a bright future at United. The Portuguese coach replied, “That is clear. He has talent. He needs to learn to play in a different position. He needs to play better inside.”

“He improves a lot in the recovering position when he doesn’t have the ball. But doing that, sometimes he’s not in the right place to make transitions like he was in the past. I prefer to defend and then build up with all the team to reach the final third.”

“He’s finding the best way to play in this system. He’s improving during training. He started the last game. Let’s see tomorrow. I think he changed the way he sees himself.”

On the team moving forward, Amorim remarked, “I think we want to be a team that is hard to play. It’s like I had this feeling, especially at home in the last games, that we were easy to play. And we have to be honest with that.”

“So if we face the competition the right way, we will be tough to beat for any opponent. So that’s what I wanted. That’s what I felt in the last two games. It’s a [pride] thing. Yeah, I think that we need to think about that and we have to feel it.”

On yet another occasion, Amorim lamented United’s struggles in front of goal.

“I think, again, we have a lack of goals. This team in the past scored a lot of goals from transition. Not from building up in the half of the opponent’s pitch. So we’ll see tomorrow. We have a lot to improve.”

“I think we, as a team, are not used to spend a lot of time in the last third of the opponent. We had some games here that we lost and we had that control, but the threat was not there. And we have to have time to train that. And the players have to spend a lot of time during training, during the game, to be good at this moment. And if you see – and I saw a lot of games before – we scored a lot of goals like Garnacho doing transitions, Rashford. But then you see the difference of our goals is like always negative and it’s still negative.”

“And I think that is the biggest problem in our team. The lack of goals and the lack of ability to play in the last third of the opponent, to control the games, to control more of the games. So we know that. We need time to train. We try to pass the information, but it’s harder for us to score in that way than in transitions.”

Amorim gave injury updates on a number of players including Harry Maguire, Lisandro Martinez, Luke Shaw and Mason Mount.

“Harry was sick in the last game. He was dead in the end – and that’s what I want from every player. [Playing against the Saints?] Harry, we will see. We cannot lose him, so we will see. Martinez, I think, is okay. Diogo cannot play – his fault!”

“Luke Shaw is nearer than Mason Mount. Mason Mount will take a little bit longer. Luke, we’ll see in the next week or two. We’ll see if he’s returning.”

Amorim dismissed any suggestion that Mount will be out for the remainder of the season.

United vs. Southampton kicks off at 20:00 GMT.

Featured image Alex Livesey via Getty Images

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