Head coach Ruben Amorim is confident that Manchester United know how Athletic Club will adapt to several key injuries in Thursday night's Europa League semi-final second leg.
Amorim was addressing journalists at Carrington on Wednesday afternoon.
United hold a three-goal advantage from the first leg out in Bilbao, thanks to a stellar performance on the road.
However, our last home game in this competition, against Lyon, shows that, in football, momentum can twist and turn at speed. United must be on our game to progress past our Basque opponents and secure a place in a first Europa League final since 2021.
Ruben was asked in his press conference about the absence of key Athletic trio, brothers Nico and Inaki Williams, and top scorer Oihan Sancet. While he says United are focused on our game-plan, he acknowledged the several ways in which the visitors could adapt.
Read his analysis and everything else from his time in front of the media below...
Hi Ruben, we noticed [Matthijs] De Ligt wasn’t training today, what is the severity of his injury and who else is unavailable?
“It’s not a big issue, that is a good thing. He cannot play tomorrow. He’ll not play on Sunday [against West Ham United] but then we will check day-by-day. We will see. The rest, Ayden [Heaven] doesn’t recover, Toby [Collyer] is not available, I think that’s it.”
Obviously you’ve got a big lead going into this match but we’ve seen some negative home results this season, so how important is it not to be complacent?
“That is clear because also if you look at our season, anything is possible. We have to understand that one goal can change everything, the momentum of the game, one sent off, you saw it one week ago. So, we are prepared to fight to win the game, not thinking about the result [of the tie]. Of course, that matters, in the way we are going to do things, especially in the start of the game, but we are thinking about winning the game.”
Ruben, there’s been a lot of speculation over the last 24-48 hours about Bruno Fernandes and his future. Alejandro [Garnacho] has mentioned there are a lot of rumours around. What is your view of Bruno and his importance to this team and this squad, not just for the next two to three weeks, but going forward?
“I think it’s easy to understand that. Not just because of the numbers but the way he plays, the impact he has during his five years here, he’s a top player. We need the top players. He’s a leader, he’s the captain, so he’s really important. It’s normal that there are a lot of clubs that want a player like Bruno, like Garnacho, like others. But we want to keep the best players and Bruno is clearly one of the top players in the world. So, our idea didn’t change. We want Bruno here.”
Ruben, how many times have you watched the Athletic Club game and does the result reflect what happened on the pitch for you?
“I watched it a lot of times, the first 30 minutes, and I forget the rest. You cannot prepare a game with 11 against 10, with a 2-0 in that moment. So, I watched and I felt that, again, I had the feeling that they were really intense but most of the opportunities were a little bit our fault. We lost the possession. It was hard to find some place that they built up since the defence, the midfielders, the offence, and they create the chance. It was more like, we have the ball, we lose the ball, we have problems. We could show to the players that, sometimes, we have one idea that 30 minutes with a lot of problems, and we try to describe slowly and to show to the players why we had that problem. So, we watched quite a few times! And we showed to the players the simple moments to show why we had so many problems in the first 30 minutes.”
Ruben, is the Lyon game a reminder that you can’t take anything for granted?
“It’s everything together. If you look at our team, we cannot say today what is going to happen. There are some teams in any league that can understand, ‘the game is going to be like this’ and can change a little bit, but the story is going to be like this and we can control the narrative of the game. We cannot do that. So we have to face the game as one more game. I feel that we need to score to go to the next round, so that is clearly the way we are going to face the game. And then we use some image… Brentford, we are near the draw but we suffer a goal and suffer another goal, quite fast. That can happen. That happened four times here in Manchester United, so we know we will have to suffer a little bit to go to the final, and we are ready to suffer and we need to better at the small details in this game.”
So you don’t know which United will show up tomorrow night?
“Yeah, it’s hard to say. Sometimes, it’s not what kind of team we will be tomorrow. Sometimes, even during the game, we are one team, something happens and we lose our minds a little bit. But we are improving the way we play, we are more confident and we are ready to face this challenge.”
Ruben, you played in a Europa League final 11 years ago as a player, but as a manager, this would be the first time you’ve reached a European final, so on a personal level, how much would it mean to you as a manager, to get there despite all that’s going on?
“The meaning is you have to win it. As a manager, it’s not the same as a player. You want to play, you want to enjoy [it]. When you are a manager, you have to win it because, if you lose in the final, it will hurt even more, especially in this kind of season. So you need to win it. But for that, we need to focus on the semi-final, so I think it’s different from coach to a player. But we need to focus first on our semi-final, then we’ll think about the final.”
And just a quick word about the fact that they’re travelling without the Williamses [brothers, Inaki and Nico] and [Oihan] Sancet?
“It doesn’t matter. For us, it doesn’t matter. For us, it’s the top team of Athletic. I understand it’s hard to play without key players but, for us, it doesn’t matter. We need to go to the game, it’s a final for us. We need to go to the game and try to win the game.”
Ruben, Arsene Wenger was talking about the Europa League, the other day, and said the finalists should go back into the Europa League, not the Champions League, is that something you disagree with?
“I don’t have nothing to… I just know the rules. If people want to change the rules, by all means, but these are the rules and the rules are, if we win the Europa League, we go to Champions League, and we follow just the rules. I don’t think a lot about that. I know that the Champions League should be for the teams that are the champion or the best teams in the league, but they find this way of promoting this kind of competition, so we just follow the rules and try to manage this end of the season with that. We cannot go by the Premier League, we follow the rules and try to go for the Europa League.”
Ruben, a few weeks ago, you labelled the team as maybe the worst one in the club’s history. From today’s point of view, now being close to reaching a final, what do you think about this quote?
“I think you have to see the quotes in the moment, so things can change. And for me, in that moment, and if you look to the Premier League, since I arrive, we are the worst team in terms of results. In the end of this season, we can be the worst team in Premier League history but with a European title. That will change nothing. We know that this season was really disappointing for everybody, nothing is going to change, so in that moment… sometimes I have to think a little bit more. But I felt that, and I still feel that. This season was the worst one, I don’t know if in history but, for sure, in the last 50 years.”
Ruben, what do you expect from tomorrow night’s game, and with the Williams brothers missing?
“It’s the idea of the team, don’t change. If you look at the game, [Alex] Berrenguer could play on the left, he’s a different player from Nico [Williams]. [Alvaro] Djalo, I know quite well, he could get in the team, he’s quite similar in the way he plays to Inaki [Williams]. Of course, Inaki is a better player in this moment, he has the experience. Sancet is a player they don’t have with that characteristics, they have [Unai] Gomes but he is left-footed and could change the side. So I think the idea of Athletic will not change, but the characteristics of the players will change and that is important for us to know, to better understand the game. So it’s going to be a strong game with a strong identity with some players that are not playing so much and that’s it. That happens in any team.”