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Ruben Amorim says he wants to keep Casemiro and Harry Maguire at Man United beyond the current season when their contracts expire.
United’s head coach was speaking in the embargo portion of the press conference ahead of tomorrow’s Premier League match with Spurs in London.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “My aim is to assume with Casemiro, and with Harry Maguire, that he has the same problem. I don’t know what will happen, but let’s focus on this this season.”
“I am very happy with Casemiro. It is very important. I am very happy with Harry. But I know what you are asking. Let’s concentrate on this season and then we will see in the next season.”
The next question was whether Amorim thinks there is a chance to exceed expectations this season and reach a good position in the league.
“What I think is that we can win every game,” he replied. “If we have this opportunity, let’s do everything we can to win. Let’s try to tackle every detail to try to win every game.”
“I don’t want to talk about the new goal. You said yourself that everything is so close. Is everything so close and everything so close? Three weeks can change everything. Three weeks ago everything changed. Four weeks ago we had a completely different conversation. So let’s focus on the next match, what we can do.”
“I also agree that if you are one behind, play away, feel like you are in control of the game and know that you can be close to the top in second place, we could start that second half in a different way. I agree with that. The players felt that and we talked about that during the week. Let’s just concentrate on winning against Tottenham. Can we win?” [at]Tottenham? I think we can. Let’s do everything we can to win the next one.”
Amorim was then asked if he is relaxed about the fact that striker Benjamin Sesko has only scored two goals in eleven games.
“Yes, I’m relaxed,” he replied. “He’s not relaxed. What I mean is that I understand how things are in football. And he’s going to have a hard time. That’s normal. He has no experience here. And then the first impact, when everyone says you’re so good, you’re the next big thing, and you hear that at Sesko, and then you come to a club that is the most difficult club. If you don’t perform every week, you’re going to hear a lot of things from club legends, from experts, from the media and sometimes they’re right.
“Having the ability to understand that this is normal and still maintain your self-confidence is very difficult for a young child, and especially a young child who is a control freak, wants to be in control, and will not have everything under control.
“I know and I said that when I start training with Ben, he has more potential than I thought. He will struggle and we have to understand how he likes to play, also to bring our ideas. So everything, I think, I am quite relaxed with that. He will be our striker for the long term. But he will have these struggles and these bumps along the way and that is normal in football.”
The follow-up question concerned whether he felt Sesko would be upset by Gary Neville’s comments when he said he was “a far cry” from what was expected.
“Of course no one likes to hear that. He struggled a bit and that’s a fact. So let’s embrace that. It’s not personal,” the Portuguese admitted.
“It’s not nothing. That’s what I try to explain to the players. That’s not personal. It’s an opinion that’s going to change in three weeks. What’s true today, in three weeks, everything could be a lie. So of course it’s difficult to hear, but my advice to Ben is that you get used to it and then it becomes normal. It’s going to be like your Monday here. So that’s part of the process and we’re going to help him and we’re going to protect Ben because he works very hard and he wants to succeed. So he will succeed.
Amorim was then asked: “You spoke last week about how difficult it was to lose the final to Tottenham Hichy last season. Obviously they won the game, you lost the game, they changed coaches, this club didn’t change coaches. Does that tell you the fine margins in this business and the importance of a club supporting their manager?”
“It’s completely different,” he replied. “I already said: I’m really lucky to be here. I know that. It’s important that someone understands how lucky I am to have this opportunity.”
“When you see the match, I think we deserve to win. In the end it doesn’t matter. It’s hard to see a coach who wins the European Cup disappear and the other guys stay. Sometimes it’s the difference or maybe win more important titles in the future. So I think that’s what Manchester United thinks. Let’s give time to the coach and see what happened, and then we’ll see. So I just want to say on that question that I’m really lucky to have the support that I have on this one club.”
The last question of the conference was about Bruno Fernandes. The reporter asked if there is a point when Amorim will think about resting and rotating the skipper.
Amorim replied:
“We have one match a week. It’s always available. It’s really difficult. I already said: we have good things to play just one match, but then there are a lot of players who would have to play, divide the minutes, fight for their place in a different way. But we don’t have the space, so I’m not thinking about the rotation of the players right now.”
“Yes, in the future it is something that Bruno has to understand: in this competition if you want to win every match you are in, you will have to rotate in European matches. So a good question that Bruno has to put in his mind is that maybe next year he will play a rotation in the team.”
Read every word of the first volume of Amorim’s press here.
Tomorrow’s match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium starts at 12:30 GMT.
Featured image Matt McNulty via Getty Images
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