Amorim provides update on de Ligt injury and says Man Utd must be ‘ready to suffer’ in second leg with Athletic Club | OneFootball

Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim has provided a positive update on the injury suffered by Mathjis de Ligt.

The defender was forced off in the 4-3 defeat to Brentford on Sunday and did not train with the team ahead of their Europa League semi-final second leg against Athletic Club.

But Amorim says the issue is not expected to keep him out for long.

“It is not a big issue,” he said.

“That is a good thing. He cannot play tomorrow and he’ll not play on Sunday [against West Ham United at Old Trafford] but then we’ll check day-by-day.”

Amorim also confirmed that youngsters Ayden Heaven and Toby Collyer will remain out, along with long-term absentees Joshua Zirkzee, Diogo Dalot and Lisandro Martinez.

“The rest, Ayden doesn’t recover,” the United boss said. “Toby is not available, I think that’s it.”

Noussair Mazraoui will be welcomed back for the second leg, however, having been rested for the game against Brentford, and took part in the team’s training session before the game.

Athletic will be without their key duo – brothers Inaki and Nico Williams – as they look to overturn a 3-0 deficit to United, but Amorim insists that does not change his team’s approach to the game.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “For us, it doesn’t matter.

“I understand it’s hard to play without key players but for us, it doesn’t matter.

“It’s a final for us. We need to go into the game and try to win the game.”

Amorim also admits that despite his side’s three-goal advantage, there is an unpredictability about his side which makes it difficult to know what will happen.

“If you look at our team, we cannot say today what is going to happen,” he said.

“There are some teams in any league that can understand the game is going to be like this, it can change a little bit but the story is going to be like this and we can control the narrative of the game. We cannot do that.

“We have to face it as one more game. I feel that we need to score to go to the next round and that is the way we’re going to approach the game.

“Against Brentford, we are near the draw but we suffer a goal and suffer another goal quite fast. That can happen.

“We will have to suffer a little bit to go to the final and we are ready to suffer.

“Sometimes even during the game we are one team, something happens, and we lose our minds a little bit but we are improving the way we play, we have more confidence and we are ready to face this challenge.”