Ruben Amorim gave a terse reply to Arne Slot\u2019s recent comments, cutting through the noise ahead of Manchester United\u2019s home match with Brighton & Hove Albion. When pressed on Slot\u2019s remarks at Friday\u2019s press conference, Amorim responded simply: \u201cI don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n
He elaborated on his view of external criticism in the same briefing. \u201cI don\u2019t care what Slot is saying, what people are saying about our team,\u201d he huffed during Friday\u2019s press conference. \u201cI can watch the game and say we can do better and we need to do better in the future but sometimes you need to adapt to the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
United goalkeeper Senne Lammens had previously highlighted the team\u2019s tactical adjustment against Liverpool, noting that the Red Devils played long to avoid being smothered by Liverpool\u2019s high press, an approach that delivered the desired result after the famous Anfield victory.<\/p>\n
Amorim left little room for outside analysis of his squad. \u201cI don\u2019t need anyone to evaluate my team,\u201d Amorim added before turning his attention to the visit from Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday. \u201cI can evaluate my team and I am really clear that we should play better with the ball and we are going to try to do that in this game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brighton head coach Fabian H\u00fcrzeler has been studying United\u2019s responses and is preparing his side for a similar long-ball strategy. \u201cThe main thing you need to understand is that it starts with the press, how you attack the goalkeeper, which centre back you want to attack,\u201d H\u00fcrzeler explained to Sky Sports ahead of Saturday\u2019s trip to Old Trafford. \u201cAnd then make sure that you’re ready for the long ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the long ball is played, there are two things that are very important: that you try to win the second ball, and that, if you don\u2019t win the second ball, you have good positioning for the third ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake sure that, with your last line, you always cover the inner line, so when they try to flick the ball, especially with [Benjamin] \u0160e\u0161ko, you can defend against the deep runs from [Matheus] Cunha, from [Bryan] Mbeumo, from [Mason] Mount.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are very good at these things, so it\u2019s a job for the whole team, not only of the defensive players. The main thing is to keep the compactness, make sure you have close distances, that you close the gaps, and that you\u2019re really intense for the second ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Arne Slot\u2019s public tone has come under scrutiny amid Liverpool\u2019s poor run of form. Slot\u2019s comment calling Newcastle United a \u201csmaller club\u201d while discussing Alexander Isak\u2019s recovery was deflected by Newcastle manager Eddie Howe. \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s wise for me to get involved in those discussions,\u201d Howe replied. \u201cAlex is no longer at this football club, so I won\u2019t comment on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When reminded of Newcastle\u2019s position in the Champions League phase and their ambitions, Howe added: \u201cThe set-up is here is very good. It is not perfect, we\u2019ve got things to improve and to grow. But the owners here have developed the facilities since I\u2019ve been here very, very well. ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amorim dismisses Arne Slot’s comments and focuses on improving United’s ball play for Brighton match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[773,179,172],"tags":[195,299,1012],"class_list":["post-4018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brighton-hove-albion","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-alexander-isak","tag-arne-slot","tag-burnley-style"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4018","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=4018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}