Amorim: Players can change my plans

The Reds lifted the Snapdragon Cup after beating the Serie A side 5-4 on penalties, following a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford in our final warm-up match of what has been a morale-boosting summer.

There are now just eight days until Arsenal travel to M16 for our first competitive outing of the 2025/26 campaign.

The boss told MUTV that he needs to think about his plans for the visit of Mikel Arteta’s side and his players “need to fight during the week” to show they deserve to be involved.

Scroll down to watch and read what Ruben said in his post-match interview…

WE CAN DO BETTER

“Today was a tough match. It was important for us to take out the feeling of playing at Old Trafford out of the system, it was really good. I think we had some difficulties, especially in the beginning of the first half and the beginning of the second half. They have a lot of mobility and we struggled to find the right moment to press, but then we controlled the game. I think we had a lack of fluidity in the game, we can do better, but I think it was a perfect game of preparation to show us that we need to improve in different areas, that we are going to struggle in some moments. But sometimes we have players that can make a player to elevate the stadium.”

IMPORTANT TO HAVE BALANCE

“That [balance of right and left footed players] is the most important thing, of course. We need to have good players to score goals, but the way we are kicking the ball gave us a lot of chances to score.”

'UNBELIEVABLE' MOUNT

“It’s unbelievable the way he [Mason Mount] works, moving all the time from positions. He knows all positions, but also the other guts, it was a good test to prepare the first team.”

STRIKER STRUGGLES

“I think they [Cunha and Mbeumo] are maybe 50/60 per cent of what they can do. I think, like any other team, we are going to improve during the season, they are going to be so much better. In some moments I felt that we, because of the one-v-one in all the pitch, we struggle without a reference as a striker. We have a new player [Benjamin Sesko] so we’ll see.”

THE PLAYERS WILL CHANGE MY MIND

“That [a selection headache] is a good thing, it is supposed to be like that, not like last season that we have to struggle to put 11 players on the pitch. This is the normal thing so I need to think and they [the players] need to fight during the week, so they can change my mind, I have an idea but they will change my mind during the week. It is going to be tough because we try to arrange a full week of training, so we will have two really strong sessions with time to work and then we are going to break a little bit and then two days to really think about the strategy for the game and we will be ready.”