Ruben Amorim has acknowledged the understandable frustration of squad members chasing international tournament places, but he made clear Manchester United\u2019s requirements will take priority when clubs assess January options.<\/p>\n
Amorim admitted he understands why players might consider moves to secure minutes before the World Cup. The home-grown midfielder was injured for a crucial chunk of last season and his eight appearances so far in 2025\u201326 have amounted to only 228 minutes\u2014he is yet to start in the Premier League. Zirkzee has played even less football\u2014just 90 minutes across four appearances\u2014and both players are vulnerable to missing out on next summer\u2019s World Cup as a result. Neither player is established enough with their respective national team to warrant selection under current circumstance and both have not been selected within the last 12 months.<\/p>\n
Speaking ahead of Monday night\u2019s Premier League clash with Everton, Amorim stressed his priorities. \u201cThe first thing is that the club comes first,\u201d he told reporters in the buildup to Monday night\u2019s Premier League clash with Everton.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to think about the club and the team, and [only] then everything can happen. I was a football player, I understand everything, and I want to help my players in every situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what is going to happen. I want my players happy. I understand the frustration of some players, seeing that the World Cup is there, and I know what it means, but Manchester United comes first. If I can help the club and the players, I will be happy, if not I have to think about the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manuel Ugarte is not facing the same international uncertainty, his place with Uruguay at the World Cup is relatively safe, but he is still struggling for regular minutes at club level. Amorim\u2019s preference for a resurgent Casemiro alongside Bruno Fernandes in a two-man midfield has limited Ugarte to just two Premier League starts\u2014none since the end of September. A reunion after previous success under Amorim at Sporting CP has yet to deliver the hoped-for upturn. \u201cYou can sense that a lot of very good players come here, and sometimes they struggle, and they are struggling, he is struggling in the moment,\u201d the United boss said of Ugarte, stressing that he needs to see more from the \u00a350.7 million ($66.5 million) signing in training.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is our job to try to help our players, and again, everything can change, and you saw it five weeks ago, the environment [in the club] was completely different. ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amorim accepts players’ World Cup frustration but insists Manchester United’s needs come first. all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4672,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,172,1163],"tags":[342,1012],"class_list":["post-4673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-epl","category-transfers","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-burnley-style"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4673","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=4673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}