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Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim has strongly suggested that Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho were not up to the standard in a number of areas, prompting his decision to exclude them from the matchday squad that came back from behind to beat Manchester City at the Etihad.
Bruno Fernandes and Amad Diallo both struck late to overturn a Josko Gvardiol opening header and secure a valuable victory for United.
Before the match, the shocking news was the respective absences of Rashford and Garnacho, who were not even named on the bench.
In his pre-match media duties, Amorim suggested that the two Carrington academy graduates’ omission was not injury-related with the pair both training on Sunday morning.
Questions about Rashford and Garnacho dominated Amorim’s press conference in the aftermath of the victory over City.
Amorim said, “It’s important to say why: was not a disciplinary thing. Next week, next game, new life, they are fighting for their places.
“But for me, it’s important: the performance in training, the performance in game, the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you engage with teammates, the way you push your teammates, everything is important in our context in the beginning of something when we want to change a lot of things.
“When people in our club are losing their jobs we have to put the standards really high and for that they have to fight for a place in the team.”
“And today the team proved we can leave anyone out of the squad and manage to win if you play together.”
Amorim reiterated, “I’m going to say again was not a disciplinary thing. It’s the small details. You can see the games like I see, there are some things that have to change.”
“But it is a new life, it’s not a disciplinary thing, it’s the performance in training, the performance in game and I have to choose players. Jonny Evans did everything right, he was at home, and he is really important for us.”
“If it was disciplinary, I would say that here and it will be a bigger problem but was not that. Sometimes I want to improve my players and you understand that for so long.”
“We tried for example with Rash, it does not work. Let’s continue to do the same thing or try something different? So it’s as simple as that. If they train well with the talent they have we will be so much better with them. But they have to work hard, they do, today they trained really hard. New week, new life, let’s see.”
“You can dress in a way that I don’t like, really don’t like, but it’s not a disciplinary thing. It’s the small details. But the performance in training and games, then I have to choose. That’s it. New week, new life. That’s it.”
United are back in action on Thursday when they take on Tottenham Hotspur in the quarter-final of the Carabao Cup.
Featured image Carl Recine via Getty Images
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