‘I’m trying to improve my players’ – Amorim explains Rashford and Garnacho absence and praises United’s team spirit | OneFootball

Ruben Amorim says his decision to leave Alejandro Garnacho and Marcus Rashford out of his squad for the win over Manchester City was because he is trying to encourage higher standards.

Amad’s late winner saw Manchester United beat rivals City 2-1, after Bruno Fernandes had equalised from the penalty spot following Josko Gvardiol’s first-half opener.

But there was no place for Rashford or Garnacho in the matchday squad and explaining the decision, Amorim said: “It’s important to say why. It was not a disciplinary thing. Next week, next game, is a new life, they are fighting for their places.

“But for me, it is important, the performances in training, the performance in games, the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you engage with team-mates, the way you push your team-mates, everything is important in our context, in the beginning of something, when we want to change a lot of things, when a lot of people in our club are losing their jobs, we have to put the standards really high.

“And for that, they have to fight for their place in the team and today the team proved that we can leave anyone outside the squad and can manage to win if you play together.

“If it was disciplinary, I would say that here and it would be a bigger problem but it was not that.

“I’m just trying to improve my players. For example with Rashford, we try something and it doesn’t work, let’s continue to do the same thing or try to do something different? It’s as simple as that.

“If they train well, with the talent they have, we will be so much better with both of them but they have to work hard. They are trying and today they trained really hard so it’s a good thing.”