Ruben Amorim explains bizarre decision to take off Joshua Zirkzee in frustrating Wolves draw | OneFootball

Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim has revealed the motivation behind his decision to substitute Joshua Zirkzee at half-time during the club’s 1-1 draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers.

United held to frustrating draw

United will go into the new year and the second half of the season in the top six, but there is little to be happy about after the poor performance against Wolves.

Heading into the meeting at Old Trafford, Wolves were on a run of 11 consecutive losses, but they managed to snatch a draw.

The visitors started as the sharper of the two sides but it was United who took the lead just before the half-hour mark when Zirkzee produced some fine footwork before firing a shot, which took a deflection on its way into the back of Jose Sa’s net.

Undeterred by the setback, Wolves dug deeper and drew level at the stroke of half-time courtesy of Ladislav Krejci, who found himself with space to rise highest and head the ball past the reach of Senne Lammens.

United beat Wolves 4-1 just three weeks ago at the Molinuex but they couldn’t find the creative spark on this occasion in the absence of Amad, Bryan Mbeumo and Bruno Fernandes. Patrick Dorgu thought he had won it for the Red Devils at the death but his goal was ruled out for offside.

Ultimately, neither side could find a decisive breakthrough and the points were shared.

Amorim explains Zirkzee decision

A few eyebrows were raised when Zirkzee was replaced during the interval by Jack Fletcher. While he endured an underwhelming start to the game, Zirkzee finished the half strongly, the highlight of which was his strike.

Making just his third senior appearance, Fletcher inevitably struggled to influence the match. The decision to withdraw Zirkzee became even more perplexing when at one point in the game, United were left with only Matheus Cunha and Benjamin Sesko as their recognised forwards on the pitch.

Speaking to Sky Sports [as quoted by BBC] after the final whistle, Amorim said about his Zirkzee decision, “We were running around trying to get hold of the ball. We were struggling with their midfielders, and sometimes you can attack better with less strikers.”

“We played with three strikers and sometimes that’s not the best thing to attack well.”

“This game is over, you can not change the result of this one but you can move on and go to the next one.”

Amorim said about the result, “We struggled in all the game. We had a lack of creation but we already knew it would be a different game to Newcastle. We had a different energy during the game. Looking at the 90 minutes we had our chances but the fluidity offensively wasn’t there. There is a lack of connections at the moment.”

“Completely different game to the last one. We had more men behind the ball, when you have that you have to work harder to create more, have imagination and play the game in a different way. We lacked that today.”

“They tried. We didn’t play well. When you don’t play well with the ball you struggle without it. We need to recover and go to the next one.”

He also told Match of the Day, “Strange game. We knew it would be a different game to Newcastle. We needed more imagination today to create chances. We struggled in the first half trying to steal the ball. They put a lot of men in the midfield. We tried but the quality was not there. We need to recover to the next one.”

Asked about conceding just before the interval, Amorim answered, “We need to work on that because it’s not the first time. The fluidity of the game was not there. We tried.”

“We tried to overload one side but in Premier League you need one v one and you need that and we didn’t have it today.”

“We don’t have the guys that play outside – we tried to overload the middle but today was not our day.”

“Even against Everton it was three points lost, West Ham was two points lost. Always frustrating. Football is like that. If you focus on the performance, we struggled today.”

United are next in action on Sunday, 4 January, when they go away to Leeds United.

Featured image Carl Recine via Getty Images

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