Ruben Amorim and Man United look to defend their FA Cup crown but have been dealt a difficult start with a trip to The Emirates. MUFC will be looking to exact revenge over Arteta and co after his side defeated United 2-0 at the start of December.
The United boss speaks about the FA Cup and the history that comes along with the oldest cup competition in football. Despite facing a tough opponent in Arsenal at the very start, Amorim says "we want to win and to continue with our performance."
Amorim wants United to lift the trophy again. He says that despite being in a difficult moment, "we are improving" and that he will field the best team to get the win on Sunday.
There has been a lot of rumors surrounding the future of Kobbie Mainoo to which Amorim said that the idea at United "is to always keep the best players" and ones that they can build a future around. However, considering the difficult predicament of the club on and off the field, the manager understands that there will always be these rumors.
However, he did say that he "loves the players, especially the ones that came through the academy." He adds that he is happy with Mainoo and that the youngster is improving.
When asked about Rashford, the boss said that the focus is just on the game and that we will see what happens regarding his future.
Amorim has rotated his team quite a lot since his arrival to which he said that the rotation was done more during the period in which he was trying to find out what type of players he has at his disposal. "Players have returned from injury and now we are rotating less."
As United have had their second straight full week of training, the Portuguese expects his team to understand what he wants from them a little bit better.
The manager is also not looking to rest players after a week off but with a game next Thursday at home to Southampton in the league (just four dyas after Sunday's visit to Arsenal), Amorim feels "it does not make sense for me to rest players now and play both games really near."
He also spoke about Arsenal's captain Martin Odegaard and how important he is to their team. "When he is playing, Arsenal is a different team." However, he added that they can lose with or without their influential Norwegian skipper.
Amorim also confirmed that backup goalkeeper Altay Bayindir will start in goal instead of Andre Onana.
Final Thoughts
Just on the team news, he says that he will pick the best team to get the win but selects Bayindir in goal?! I know Onana isn't Peter Schmeichel but he is better than Bayindir.
Let's just hope it works out.
Kobbie Mainoo is the future of United. He is exactly what this club is all about as he is from the youth, was given his chance in the first team and is showing just how good he is.
We need to keep him at all costs. With these rumors during the week and the window being open though, anything is possible.
I do love the fact that Amorim said he loves all his players but especially those that came through the academy. This says to me that he is hinting that a player like Mainoo is not one that he wants to get rid of. He sees him as an essential part of his plan.
I agree with the boss. Mainoo is not a player we should be looking to sell or even putting it out there that we could be willing to let him go for the right price, even if the club are reluctant to do so.
Also, does Amorim saying he loves the academy players mean that Garnacho still has a future under him? The 20-year-old hasn't featured as much as he would've liked but a comment like this could give him some encouragement that his United career may not be over just yet.
I did think that when it came to the rotation, it was down to many reasons: injuries, players returning from injury, quick turnaround times between games, but the most important was, like Amorim said, to see who is best suited for his system.
It was a little annoying that after the first five to six games, he continued with this hefty rotation, or the rotation of certain players whilst always picking others when they perhaps needed more of a rest than those who were actually being rotated (Bruno, Mazraoui, Martinez and Dalot were always selected when it was clear they needed a break).
But he has now had enough time to see who he can trust to play for him. I doubt that we'll see much rotation from here on although the quick turnaround times will return after Sunday. Maybe this is part of his thought process as to why Bayindir will start over Onana 🤷.
The fact that he's had two back-to-back full weeks of training will have given Amorim more time to get his message across to the players. We saw in the early days of his reign that the squad weren't quite getting to grips with the 3-4-3 formation.
Some of them are still struggling but having had a week off before the Liverpool game, that produced the best performance of the season leading many to think that this could've been down to that one week at Carrington.
A further 7 days will mean there should be more of an improvement and if we could do what we did at Anfield after just one full week of training, imagine what we could do with two.
I'm sure that he will be looking to win this trophy. It could be a shining light to our season much like it was for last as it gave us some salvation from a truly awful campaign.
Hopefully that won't be the reason for winning it this year (if we do) but I too, would like to lift it again. But that means beating a good Arsenal side that have had our number for many years. I think if ever there was a time for United to get one over them, this would be it.
More than anything though, we need to show some consistency after an amazing display at Anfield. It was what drove Amorim 'mad' as he wants that same quality shown in every match. No point having a one-off like that and playing crap in the rest.
Background Image: Kobbie Mainoo and Ruben Amorim | Image: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images via Liverpool.com