Leny Yoro breaks silence on “difficult” Southampton clash, he delivers the perfect message

Leny Yoro has finally reacted to his toughest Manchester United game so far this season against Southampton last month.

Manchester United made a surprise swoop last summer to sign Leny Yoro from Lille, beating Real Madrid to his signature.

The teenage defender had a difficult start to life at Old Trafford, suffering a pre-season injury that kept him out until November.

By the time he was fit to return, Erik ten Hag—the manager who brought him in—had been sacked and replaced by Ruben Amorim, who introduced a three-at-the-back system.

Yoro has since featured 15 times for United, starting in seven matches, as he aims to find consistency under Amorim.

The defender has been a solid performer in a lot of those games but did have a very troubling night against Southampton in mid-January.

He started at right centre-back and couldn’t deal with the speedy Kamaldeen Sulemana on the flank, who completed five take-ons in that game.

The Frenchman won just one of his six attempted duels throughout his 81 minute cameo and would have learned a lot from a game that screamed ‘Welcome to the Premier League‘.

Yoro reflects on difficult Southampton clash

Rio Ferdinand interviewed the Frenchman this week and mentioned that fixture and how he reflects on it, to which Yoro responded very well.

“Yeah, this game was a little bit difficult because I lost a lot of one-on-ones,” replied Yoro when asked about that fixture.

“For the confidence it isn’t the best thing but it is life, and you cannot change the past.

“But this is the type of game that helps you to grow up. You can do good tackles, take penalties, many good things but you need bad things to improve your games and get experience. I think this game helped me a lot.

“I’ve watched the one-v-ones like maybe 10 times because I just wanted to know what I did wrong and I think this game helped me a lot to improve.”

Yoro delivered the perfect message

Yoro came to the club for big money but no one expected him to be the finished product immediately and those issues were expected.

He has also showed really impressive abilities on the pitch but it is also clear that he has the right mentality. You could also see that when he stepped up to take a spot-kick in a penalty shootout against Arsenal.

The Frenchman could be set to be even more involved for the team in the back-end of the season after Lisandro Martínez suffered a season-ending injury.

Read More: Two Manchester United stars publicly volunteer to replace “wonderful” Lisandro Martínez in defence

He will be hoping that there aren’t many similar games to that Southampton one, but it also appears that he has the right tools to deal with those setbacks.

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