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Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim has pinpointed the fact that his players made Arsenal uncomfortable and forced them to adjust on the pitch, as a huge positive he noticed despite the 2-0 defeat at the Emirates.
Jurrien Timber and William Saliba both scored from corner-kick routines to hand Amorim his first loss as United boss.
After the match, Amorim spoke to reporters and addressed a number of issues including his rotation policy and the team’s performance.
When asked which coach is in charge of set-pieces, Amorim replied, “Carlos [Fernandes] is responsible for the set-pieces and different stuff. Andreas [Georgson] is also there to help and that’s it.”
“I think if you follow the Premier League for a long time, you can see that there are big players for that [set-pieces]. And you can see it on every occasion that [Bukayo] Saka and [Gabriel] Martinelli have won one against one. They go outside, they cross because they already know that if the cross is going well, they can score and if it’s a corner they can score. So we have to be better in those situations but we need time to improve. But you can see in all of Arsena’s games that the other team has problems with that.”
On rotating players, Amorim remarked, “It’s not just because I like to change all the time but we have to keep the squad fit. So, for example, Harry Maguire has a time limit, Tyrell Malacia has a time limit, Mason Mount has a time limit and Leny Yoro has a time limit.”
“So we have to manage games, different methodology, different way of playing and tomorrow we have to assess the guys that are at risk of injuring…and they will not play. We have to have everybody available to play and improve the squad.”
On his side’s performance, Amorim told journalists, “We didn’t have a lot of time…we worked a lot on building up and you can see the structure, you can see the idea. But then in the final third, we need to improve. We need to be more aggressive and have more ideas but yeah that part is more difficult to improve without time.
When asked what positive he took from the game, he replied, “I make an evaluation of the game regardless of the result. Like I said the 4-0 (vs. Everton), you can take positive things but we have to improve and you already knew that.”
“But you could feel it in the stadium in the first half, especially towards the end of the first half, you could feel that they were not comfortable. You could feel it in the stadium…so you can take that. We had one day to put together a strategy and they couldn’t cope with that. They blocked, especially the right side, with players but we managed some control in these moments.”
“I think the set pieces were the difference because they got a goal and then the momentum changed. And it became really hard to regain control of the game but it was hard…we tried but it was difficult.
When requested to provide some clarity on Luke Shaw’s injury, Amorim insisted that he does not have full information about the issue.
However, the United gaffer promised that he will support the England international through his recovery period.
United return to Premier League action on Sunday when they host Nottingham Forest at Old Trafford.
Featured image Shaun Botterill via Getty Images
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