Amorim admits same squad will face Newcastle on Sunday as they look to climb table
11/04/2025 shot on 10/04/2025 but embargoed
Newcastle - Manchester Utd
11/04/2025 shot on 10/04/2025 but embargoed
Newcastle - Manchester Utd
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SportsTranscript
00:00Obviously Josh had a tough time against Dicastle last time out in December, he brought him off after about 33 minutes I believe.
00:07That was a really hard moment for him. Since then he's come back, he's scored some big goals from here, big penalties of course in the Arsenal shootout.
00:14Obviously he's shown great character to come back from that, yeah?
00:17Yes, he's doing a great job but also a very important thing was the way the fans react after that incident.
00:27So if you see every time, even if Josh is not playing, every time he gets on the pitch or just warming up, our fans sing the Josh song.
00:35So that is massive for the players. So it's 50-50. 50 part of the fans and 50% part of Josh.
00:43From your point of view, what did you do after that game to help him back up to being in a better kind of frame of mind?
00:50The same thing. I explained the situation because as a former player I wanted to hear some explanations sometimes from the coaches and I'm really open on that.
01:02I just want to help the team and then work with him, all the work that all the staff is doing with him and is improving and then put him to play.
01:12And this is the only way to show confidence to the player.
01:15Samuel.
01:19When the club got to the last stage of the Europa League under Jose Mourinho, he started to rotate heavily in Premier League games because there wasn't a lot to play in them.
01:27Are you likely to do that similarly now where these Europa League games become more critical?
01:32But there is a great responsibility. We don't have a team that is really big to do that.
01:38And then we have some players that I know that cannot make like 90 minutes in this moment.
01:43Still, we have to be careful. So we will try to address all these subjects in the game against Newcastle.
01:50But we have a great responsibility when we play any game. So I will try to look at that.
01:57That is for sure. But we have to face Newcastle. We can be competitive to win the game.
02:05Will you roughly have the same squad as tonight for that game on Sunday?
02:09Sorry?
02:10Will you have pretty much the same squad or will some players come back?
02:13No, I think it's the same squad.
02:16Sorry.
02:17I agree.
02:18What would you make of Newcastle at the moment?
02:21You indicated before the derby that, as Samuel alluded to, you might have to say,
02:25is that you are going to have to prioritise next Thursday for the games, isn't it?
02:29Yes.
02:30Sometimes winning games is the best way of preparing the next one.
02:34Of course I am going to be careful with some players, but again, we need to be competitive.
02:39And when you are playing for Manchester United, go to the next one.
02:45So we are going to face this one and then we will have three days.
02:48We are going to prepare the game more in the way without a lot of run, a lot of training.
02:54It's just recovering and then we will be fine on Thursday with our fans.
02:59But we need to face Newcastle in a way that we can win the game.
03:03What do you make of Newcastle and the threats that they pose in particular?
03:07Everything.
03:08They have top players, really good on set pieces, the physicality, the way they run and recover
03:14when they are beaten in the first pressure.
03:16So they are a team that played together for a while.
03:21So they won a title that was really emotional for everybody.
03:25You can see it during that week.
03:28But again, we have to think in our team the way we want to play these kind of games.
03:34And we are being more consistent in the way we play the games.
03:38So we will try to do the same on Saturday.
03:41Ruben, just on Bruno Fernandes, he has played pretty much every minute this season.
03:46I think he has played the last 20 matches he has started.
03:49Does it come to a point where, obviously you have to look at the Europa League and next week
03:53do you think you can take him out of the Newcastle game or is he the one that demands to play every game?
03:57It's an evaluation.
03:59We will make this evaluation with all the staff, with all the data that we have.
04:05And then because we know already the players, we will try to protect that ones that it will be hard to make a lot of games.
04:13But Bruno Fernandes is playing all the time and is playing better all the time.
04:18Sometimes this kind of play has to play in every match but we will address that in this day that we have to prepare.
04:26Okay, the Newcastle questions are embargoed until tomorrow at 1.30pm.
04:32I see I think a local media question.
04:34We will take one more as a final question on post-match.
04:38Lastly, we spoke about Manana and let's talk about Euland.
04:42He hasn't been able to score goals as you expect.
04:45You have to bring in Zexi to score the second goal.
04:48What do you have to say about the team, the lack of goals?
04:51Do you believe we need to do things differently or is there going to be like a practical switch?
04:57No, the first step to score goals is to create chances.
05:01We are doing that.
05:02We scored two goals today.
05:06In this competition we can score.
05:08So it's something that is different from, for example, Premier League.
05:12So we have to continue to do the same things and to improve the final turn.
05:17So we are improving, if you look at the team, we are improving the way we play football.
05:22So we will improve also in that area.
05:25Again, if you look at the past of this team, we will always, maybe last year,
05:32we have always negative numbers in the difference of goals.
05:37So we need to change that.
05:39It's really important in matches to score goals.
05:41But today we scored two.
05:42So let's see next Thursday.