Ruben Amorim has insisted Manchester United are a stronger side now than when they beat Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium nine months ago. That victory, secured by late goals from Bruno Fernandes and Amad Diallo to make it 2\u20131, remains a high point amid an otherwise mixed record under Amorim.<\/p>\n
Across 30 Premier League outings, Amorim has recorded eight wins, seven draws and 15 defeats. The raw numbers read: Played 30, Won 8, Drawn 7, Lost 15, Goals Scored \/ Goals Against 36 \/ 46 (-10), Win Percentage 26.67. Despite that ledger, Amorim pointed to measurable progress and expects his team to produce against a City side managed by Pep Guardiola.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a top team with the best coach in the league,\u201d Amorim said. \u201cA team that is really hard to imagine how they are going to play. They change all the time. But we are prepared for that.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we believe in our team. And I have that feeling. So it will be a very good game. We know what to do, we have one more training. The table, in the moment, it doesn’t matter. I’m just worried about maintaining the same principles. The way we fight for every ball. The small details that sometimes we drop a little bit. Not in these games.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I’m more comfortable in these kinds of games. But we will be ready against a very, very good team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we are a better team. Any aspect, if you see the data, we are a different team. We are ready to play the game. But we have to show onside. So I think we are a better team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amorim has had substantial backing in the transfer market with both arrivals and departures. He now faces the ultimate test of that investment when United meet a City side who spent \u00a3150 million this summer and have suffered early defeats to Tottenham Hotspur and Brighton & Hove Albion.<\/p>\n
There has also been focus on Kobbie Mainoo. Mainoo explored a loan move to seek regular minutes but ultimately remained at the club. He is one of only four academy players left in the first-team squad, alongside 39-year-old goalkeeper Tom Heaton, Tyler Fredicson and Chido Obi. United have included an academy graduate in every matchday squad since October 1937, a run Amorim made clear he intends to protect: “I don’t want to be the guy that broke that record. If you see the past of Manchester United, it’s built on kids that grew up here and stayed here for a long time. I think that should be our goal in the future. So I will try to maintain that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amorim says United are better than nine months ago after Etihad win; Mainoo retained in squad today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2734,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,969],"tags":[538,342],"class_list":["post-2735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-amad-diallo","tag-bruno-fernandes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}