Rúben Amorim has addressed his starting XI changes as Manchester United line up to face Wolves in the Premier League on Sunday afternoon.
Manchester United are back in Premier League action on Sunday afternoon, as they face Wolverhampton Wanderers at Old Trafford.
Rúben Amorim’s side comes off an exciting 7-6 aggregate victory over Olympique Lyonnais at Old Trafford, securing their spot in the Europa League semi-finals, where they’ll meet Athletic Bilbao.
Amorim will also be looking to get revenge on Vitor Pereira’s Wolves, who handed United a 2-0 loss in December, with goals from Matheus Cunha and Hwang Hee-Chan.
The 40-year-old head coach will be hoping his players can carry the momentum from that thrilling win over Lyon into their return to domestic competition.
Amorim addresses starting XI decisions vs Wolves
With United releasing Amorim’s official starting XI to face Wolves, many were happy to see that Tyler Fredricson had been handed his senior debut for the side at centre-back, while Harry Amass was making his third appearance for the club.
Amass, a very talented left-back, has now started the club’s last two Premier League fixtures and came on in extra time against Lyon, with the Wolves fixture representing his first start at Old Trafford.
Speaking to MUTV, Amorim explained why he chose to make his number of changes to the starting XI.
“Yeah, we had to make an evaluation of all the players,” the head coach explained. “It’s not just the last game with 120 minutes, it’s the sequence behind it.
“So with less than 72 hours we had to make a rotation to try to stay with all the players that we have in the moment and try to recover some of them that are injured.”
Amorim explains Shaw omission decision
Speaking further, the United boss explained why he has chosen to leave Shaw out of the squad entirely after the English defender played an unexpected 75 minutes against Lyon on Thursday evening.
“So I can give you the example of Luke Shaw. Luke Shaw was, in my mind, was like 30 minutes with all the problems that we had at halftime with Vic [Lindelöf] and Nous [Mazraoui], and then extra time.
“He did a very good job, but a lot of minutes. So he has to feel that load, to rest now, and then we will train for the next game. So we try to assess all the players and we choose this starting 11 to win the game.”
Altay Bayındır also misses out on the matchday squad after suffering a small injury in training, with Amorim choosing not to select him as a precaution. Tom Heaton is on the bench as a the reserve goalkeeper instead.
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