Ruben Amorim on Manchester United's injuries and returning players ahead of visit of Nottingham Forest
06/12/2024
Carrington training centre, Manchester, UK
06/12/2024
Carrington training centre, Manchester, UK
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SportsTranscript
00:00First of all, just to start with the sad news about Cath. She meant a lot to the people
00:05at this club. I know you've not been here a long time, but you'll be aware of her legacy.
00:09Yeah, you feel it today. It's a sad day. Everybody talks about Lady Cathy. I met her seven years
00:17ago during the internship. It was the lady behind the reception. And you feel it, the
00:26love, the way Darren Fletcher speaks about her. It was a really important person here
00:35that represents everything this club is. Friendly, professional, taking care of everybody. It's
00:44a sad day for us.
00:46Looking ahead to tomorrow's game, are there any players back or unavailable? We haven't
00:51heard about Victor Lindelof or Johnny Evans for a while. What's the situation with them?
00:55Johnny is still not training. Victor returned to training but is not available for tomorrow.
01:02Maybe in the next game he'll be available. Licia and Kobe Mane are returning for the
01:09team, so we are prepared for the game.
01:12Ruben, it feels, first under Ruben, then under you, that the club's made progress. But when
01:20Eric lost at West Ham, they were 14th and now you're 13th. Do you feel as though the
01:27improvement has not been translated into positions on the table or results yet?
01:33Yeah, and it's hard because it's very competitive, this league, and change all the time with
01:39just one result. And sometimes when you are doing progress, you do so much and then you
01:46see just this kind of result and we have to pass this phase. So I can feel it the same
01:53way. Because before this Arsenal game you guys were asking about the top four and now
02:02we return to this position. So nowadays it's like that. You have to manage expectations
02:08and at the same time when you have a bad result you have to be calm and continue to do the
02:13job that we are doing.
02:16Is that the key to it? Because tomorrow won't be an easy game, but you need a consistent
02:22run of results to go from 14th, 13th, 12th to 6th, 7th, 8th?
02:29I think that is very clear. And if you see nowadays in one week you have three games.
02:35That can change the image of the team, the perception of the team and the team on the
02:42table. So in one week you can change a lot. So it's like that. And we need to have consistency
02:49in the way we focus on the job, on training. And then the result you don't control, but
02:54you feel that you have to win like three matches to see a big gap in the table.
03:01You make lots of changes from match to match so far and obviously you've explained why.
03:06But are you any closer to understanding what your best line-up can be now?
03:11More or less, yes. You have an idea, but then we have the problems that players returning
03:17without training and then you have to manage the load. So we have also always the same
03:23problem. And then you have to imagine and to understand what kind of player you have.
03:28Like Bruno Fernandes, you feel it against Arsenal in the end he was a little bit tired,
03:33but you know that he's going to recover very well. If you think about Manu, I've known
03:39him for so long, I know that sometimes he needs a little bit more time. So we are in
03:44that process to know the players and try to manage that. But we are getting closer to
03:50an idea, yes.
03:53Ruben, so many games for you already, very little time on the training pitches. But have
03:58you been impressed with how significantly United have improved out of possession? And
04:03is that then the foundation for you to build on?
04:07I think that is a key point for us. And we have to understand our supporters. Just in
04:14two weeks, in four matches, you can understand that they just want to see effort. In the
04:19first moment, they just want to see effort. Then they want to win games. And after a while
04:25with effort in winning games, they will want to see a very dominant team. And then this
04:32is the phases that we have to follow. This one is the easy one, is that effort, full
04:38effort, full sprint back, full sprint forward. And that is a key point for us. So our focus
04:43is a lot on that.
04:45Every defeat can be a win if you turn it into a lesson. So what were the big ones you guys
04:52extracted from that Arsenal game?
04:54It's really hard. I learned the same I think with wins because I'm really focused on the
05:00performance. I learned a lot against Everton. We won 4-0 but you can see so many things
05:06that are wrong. I saw the same thing against Arsenal. Of course we have to improve set
05:12pieces and we try it in the indoor stadium. We spend there a lot of time. But then we
05:18don't have time to think about things. We don't have time to train sometimes our structure.
05:25We have one game, the next recovery and then the other game we have to prepare for the
05:31next opponent. So it's really hard to manage everything. But I feel when I see the team
05:37we are improving in certain aspects.
05:41You're obviously a squad and the players come about and get themselves fit now. Are you
05:45learning about your players every single day or are you learning more on a match day?
05:50Because you're changing the squad rotation quite a lot at the moment. Are you learning
05:54about your players moving forward of who you can trust on a weekly basis?
05:58Yeah I trust in every one of them. What I'm understanding in the training, in the games
06:04and each position they play better. What kind of situation is better for you? One guy or
06:11to another? These things I need to be close to them. I need to see the games in the dugout
06:18as you say, not in TV. So I'm learning and I think we as a staff are learning really
06:24fast what they are able to do or not. So we are trying to find out everything in a fast pace.