Ruben Amorim provoked a sharp response from Paul Scholes after appearing to laugh when Kobbie Mainoo was suggested as a possible attacking option for Manchester United during the draw with West Ham United. The exchange came amid a wider concern over United\u2019s attacking form. It marks an attacking downturn for a United side that netted twice or more in five successive Premier League games between Oct. 4 and Nov. 8.<\/p>\n
After the game Amorim questioned his options in front of goal, asking reporters: \u201cWe had more men to put in the offence? Who? Who would be more offensive?\u201d When Mainoo\u2019s name was put forward he was seen to laugh and said: \u201cIt was the second ball and I was worried with Matheus [Cunha], I know Bruno [Fernandes] reached the box really well, Mason Mount is playing in his position, they were trying to push us, Bryan [Mbeumo] has a lot of pace to try to win the ball in one transition, so that was my idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mainoo did not feature and has struggled for consistent minutes this season. Amorim defended his selection policy: \u201cI see him as a starter like the other players,\u201d Amorim insisted. \u201cI just have to make a choice and then in the end, it\u2019s not been Kobbie. In the future, I don\u2019t know. Again, I always think the same thing with Casemiro. [He] was not playing and then he plays.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to win games. I don\u2019t care who is playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scholes reacted angrily on social media, arguing that the situation risks harming the 20-year-old\u2019s development. \u201cBulls—!\u201d Scholes said. \u201cThe kid is being ruined, not being played in a team that can\u2019t control a game of football. Hate seeing homegrown players leave but it\u2019s probably best for him now, enough is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report recalls Mainoo\u2019s emergence late in 2023 under Erik ten Hag and his subsequent role for England at Euro 2024, when he was still 18, with observers noting his maturity on the ball.<\/p>\n
Diogo Dalot, who scored in the match, highlighted United\u2019s loss of control after taking the lead: \u201cAt 1\u20130 up with 30 minutes to go, I think we have to control the game much more,\u201d he told Sky Sports. \u201cEspecially at Old Trafford. We cannot get as anxious as we got after the goal. We were maybe a little bit more sloppy with the ball possession.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had the game, there,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s the solution that we need to find. It can be various things. It shouldn\u2019t be like this because you are fighting 60 minutes to score a goal and then when it happens you should keep doing the same things, even more controlling, longer possession so we can be dominant. Especially the play that goes to the corner that we conceded\u2014that\u2019s the kind of play that we need to avoid, especially against teams that are good on the counter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amorim laughed at Mainoo being suggested; Scholes warned the youngster is being ruined. Crisis noted<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,172],"tags":[1021,1215,1301],"class_list":["post-4901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-amorim","tag-controversy","tag-man-utd-attack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4901","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=4901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}