Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim has instructed the club to turn down any January approaches for Kobbie Mainoo and Joshua Zirkzee, according to a report from Fabrizio Romano. Both players are understood to be unsettled and are expected to explore moves when the transfer window reopens, with both currently outside the thinking of their respective international managers.<\/p>\n
Amorim is said to view Mainoo and Zirkzee as useful squad options rather than players to be sold. He is reportedly concerned about a congested schedule across the festive period, the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations and a potentially frenetic run-in to the season. The manager wants as many rotation options as possible to manage workload and reduce the risk of injuries to preferred starters.<\/p>\n
Interest in both players has been persistent. Napoli are named admirers of Mainoo and are believed to have tried to sign him in the summer. Their reported interest is expected to resume after summer signing Kevin De Bruyne suffered a hamstring injury that is likely to keep him sidelined for several months. La Gazzetta dello Sport note Roma are pushing to sign Zirkzee, and both players have been linked with West Ham United, though David Ornstein has admitted the Hammers are unlikely to end up with either Mainoo or Zirkzee.<\/p>\n
Mainoo\u2019s standing as a club-trained player is a complicating factor. United have included one club-trained player in every matchday squad for the past 88 years, and Mainoo is one of only two senior options available to Amorim to maintain that streak, alongside third-choice goalkeeper Tom Heaton. The manager has publicly said he does not want to be the one to end that run.<\/p>\n
Former United defender Rio Ferdinand recently urged Mainoo to respond to his current situation, challenging him to work harder and to \u201cshow some fight\u201d as he attempts to convince Amorim of his value to the squad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amorim plans to reject January offers for Mainoo and Zirkzee to protect United’s squad options plus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1163],"tags":[983,1012,1032],"class_list":["post-4132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-transfers","tag-agents","tag-burnley-style","tag-contract-disputes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132","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=4132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}