Ruben Amorim believes that one Manchester United star should have helped Tyler Fredricson more on Kevin Schade’s second goal against Brentford.
Manchester United suffered another defeat in the Premier League following a 4-3 loss away to Brentford on Sunday afternoon.
For most of the season United have struggled with scoring goals, however, against Brentford it was the defence that was the problem. Goals from Mason Mount, Alejandro Garnacho and Amad should have ensured United the win but Brentford’s attack proved too much for the Reds.
Although United will be disappointed with the loss, it is a defeat they’ll be able to swallow due to the amount of experimentation in the lineup.
As qualifying for Europe via league position is no longer possible Amorim has used the league games to introduce younger players into the squad, leading to games like today where United fielded their youngest-ever Premier League eleven.
With such a different lineup to the Europa League game against Athletic Club, lots of the questions Ruben Amorim faced after the game were about his handling of the integration of youth.
Amorim is happy to play youth but they need support
Overall Amorim was pleased with the younger players who have been introduced into the squad recently. “In these small things, I think we can help them more but I’m really happy with the performance of the young kids,” he told reporters.
One of the main things he highlighted was how important it is to shape the mentality of the young players being brought into the team.
“They need to understand what it is to play for Manchester United,” the boss continued. “I think they did really well. They are not playing so much but they have to play 90 minutes because we have to change some other players to save them for Thursday.”
Although it was good to see Amad back on the scoresheet, Amorim did have criticism for him in terms of his role in Brentford’s third goal.
Amorim explained: “I think we can help even more the young kids. Especially Tyler [Fredricson], he did quite well, [but] in the third goal he needs more help from Amad”.
Although Amad is still one of the younger players in the squad he has been around the first team for over a year and it shows how he has been developing for Amorim to view him as a player who should be supporting the youth.
Amad’s wingback development
Amad has been one of United’s shining stars in attack this season, registering 17 goal involvements in all competitions. However, Amorim’s system may sometimes require him to act more defensively and the match against Brentford has highlighted this as an area he needs to develop.
Under Ruben Amorim, Amad has been used in two different ways. The first is in the “number ten” role behind the striker where he can attack centrally or pull out wide as a winger. He has done well in this position and aside from pressing from the front he’s required to do little in terms of defensive work.
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Against Brentford, Amad came on for Patrick Chinazaekpere Dorgu as an attacking wing-back. This role is usually filled by one of United’s full-backs but on occasion, a more attacking wide player has featured there and Amad has found attacking success in this role.
However, this position comes with more defensive requirements and his poor positioning on Kevin Schade made it so Fredricson had to defend against two Brentford attackers.
As spectacular as Amad’s attacking output has been this season if he is going to be used as an attacking wing-back in the long term then he will need to improve his defensive positioning or he will risk overloading the centre-backs and causing United to concede more goals.
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