Gary Neville used blunt language to describe how Kobbie Mainoo was managed at the start of the season, arguing the midfielder was mishandled before finding form under Michael Carrick.<\/p>\n
\u201cI must admit, I never liked the handling of Mainoo,\u201d Neville said on the new episode of Stick to Football, accusing Ruben Amorim of damaging the player when it became clear he would not be selected alongside Bruno Fernandes. \u201cI thought it was rubbish,\u201d he added. \u201cIt killed him publicly. And then he never put him in the team at all, apart from [against] Grimsby. That was nearly pushing a talented player out of the club before he even really had a chance to perform. You look at him now in these two matches, you think, how could that be? How could [Manuel] Ugarte [be picked ahead of him]?\u201d<\/p>\n
Roy Keane welcomed Mainoo\u2019s recent performances. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t ask for any more,\u201d he said, adding that the overall turnaround had been \u201cbrilliant.\u201d He also warned that conclusions should be cautious given the sample size: \u201cIt is only two games,\u201d he warned, wanting to see more.<\/p>\n
Paul Scholes praised the renewed midfield balance once Carrick adjusted the system to include both Mainoo and Fernandes while Casemiro remained at No. 6. \u201cKobbie and Fernandes, they make your team play football,\u201d Scholes said. \u201cWhen they had just been doing it with Fernandes, they sent [one] to play. He didn\u2019t really have anyone to play with. Now, Kobbie\u2019s also got that ability to play with someone. It makes a big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statistical snapshot from the two recent matches (Man City, Arsenal):
\nMinutes Played: 90, 90
\nRating (Out of 10): 7.5, 6.9
\nTouches: 51, 54
\nPassing Accuracy: 91%, 86%
\nPasses into Final Third: 1, 4
\nChances Created: 0, 2
\nDefensive Contributions: 9, 6<\/p>\n
Mainoo\u2019s club revival raises questions about his international prospects. The 20-year-old was instrumental as England reached the Euro 2024 final and has the opportunity to force his way back into the national squad for the World Cup if his run of form continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Neville slams Amorim’s handling of Mainoo as Carrick’s system brings midfield balance for United plus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6319,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,179],"tags":[1041,342,939],"class_list":["post-6320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-manchester-united","tag-amorim-concerns","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-casemiro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6320","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=6320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}