Thursday 23 January 2025 23:01
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Ruben Amorim felt there is plenty for his Manchester United players to improve on despite a better performance in our Europa League victory over Rangers.
The Reds boosted our chances of automatic qualification to the last 16 heading into the final league phase match away at FCSB next Thursday, with a dramatic 2-1 win at Old Trafford.
Bruno Fernandes netted the decisive goal in stoppage time on his 50th Europa League outing after substitute Cyriel Dessers looked to have earned the Scottish side a draw with an 88th-minute equaliser, cancelling out an own goal by Rangers keeper Jack Butland, who punched Christian Eriksen’s corner into the net.
Catch up with the post-match thoughts of our head coach when speaking to the media below, and watch his chat in the tunnel with MUTV…
LATE WINNER A GOOD FEELING
“A win is a win. Of course, it’s a good feeling when you feel that we deserve the win, you are near the second goal but then you suffer the draw. But we managed to score again and it was a good feeling, you can feel it in the stadium and the noise was beautiful. It was a good win today.”
WE PLAYED BETTER WITH THE BALL
“I think we did well. We played better with the ball, more connections, you can feel it, more speed sometimes with the ball. I think we started well but then we lost control of the game for seven minutes because of small, bad decisions. But I think the lads did well and, even when we suffer the goal from Rangers, we are so near of the second goal. We missed so many chances. In this moment, it’s so hard but then they recover and I think it was a good victory.
“It was important to win, especially at home. It was a good feeling to continue our work. It’s a competition that we need to be in a good position to avoid the play-offs and we are doing that. It was a good day today.”
WAS THE RESULT MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE PERFORMANCE?
“I think it’s everything together. Of course we are not playing our best, we are far from that. But we improved from the last game. I know the opponent is different, the pace, everything is different. But they try it and you can see it again the connections, the movements, some plays – I think we did well with the time we had to practice. We need to be more clinical in the right moments because that can help us a lot.
“It was not good enough [the performance] but we try and we improve a little bit in the small things like in possession and creating chances. We should score more goals. They [Rangers] didn’t create too much and that is also a good thing. We managed to express a little bit. We know that the opposition is different from the Premier League and that helped us today. It was not perfect but it was an okay performance.”
HUGE WIN FOR OUR EUROPA LEAGUE PROGRESS
“It’s very important. If you look at the schedule, it’s two weeks with one game there. We have to take these games [from] there, so it will be like two weeks free to prepare for the Premier League, that is really tough, so it’s really important to stay in this position.
“We need to focus on every game. Our goal is to win every game in the competition and our goal is to win the competition. We have to see. We have a lot to improve, we have won this one but we have to win the next one now.”
SCORING FIRST MORE IMPORTANT THAN SET-PIECE GOAL
“It’s really important because we started the game winning or scoring first – that is more important than set-pieces. We take like an intensive course in set-pieces here, so you can see that we can take it to Europe, it’s quite different. We score the first one, in the Premier League it’s not a foul [for Matthijs de Ligt’s disallowed goal]. So we are improving, it was not a perfect performance but a good performance.”
TRANSFER WINDOW UPDATE
“I don’t know what will happen. Let’s focus on the games. We have these players. Let’s improve the team, think about the players that are here. We don’t know. Until the window is closed, anything can happen.”
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Thursday 23 January 2025 23:01
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