Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim offered measured praise for Bournemouth and their manager Andoni Iraola as the Red Devils prepare to host the Cherries at Old Trafford on Monday night. Bournemouth have slipped to 14th in the Premier League table after a poor run of results, but Amorim warned that their recent form does not tell the whole story.<\/p>\n
United have recovered in recent weeks, taking seven points from the last nine available and recording away wins at Crystal Palace and Wolverhampton Wanderers. A victory over Bournemouth would see United move into the Premier League\u2019s top four at the end of the weekend.<\/p>\n
Amorim also pointed to Bournemouth\u2019s recent success at Old Trafford, noting their 3\u20130 wins there in consecutive Premier League seasons. He said he was more focused on the way Bournemouth play than on results alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpecial. I think the way they play the game like a big team, what he’s doing for some players,\u201d Amorim told his Friday news conference. \u201cI think he’s improving some players, and you can look at that team and they have several players that can play in a high level. That is an amazing job by the manager.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI think it’s a top team, top manager with a special player. I don’t look to the results. I look at the way they face every opponent. They press really strong, they are really direct in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can play with different options in front and that gives us a lot of options to work, to prepare the game. So I expect, again, a Premier League game that is really tough but we need to win, especially at home, and that is the goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amorim\u2019s reference to a \u201cspecial player\u201d could be Antoine Semenyo. United are reported to have strong interest in Semenyo, but completing a move may require triggering the \u00a365 million ($86.9 million) release clause that is active in his contract for most of January. Rival interest from Liverpool and Manchester City complicates any transfer, and there is no guarantee United would prioritise Semenyo over summer midfield reinforcements that may require significant investment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amorim praises Iraola’s work and warns United of another tough Old Trafford clash with Bournemouth …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[739,1083,172],"tags":[801,1012],"class_list":["post-5066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bournemouth","category-man-utd","category-epl","tag-antoine-semenyo","tag-burnley-style"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5066","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=5066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}