Every word of Amorim’s Spurs embargoed press conference: On Casemiro and Maguire’s new contracts | OneFootball

Ruben Amorim says he wants to keep Casemiro and Harry Maguire at Man United beyond the current season, when their contracts expire.

United’s head coach was speaking in the embargoed section of the pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow’s Premier League clash with Spurs in London.

“We don’t know what is going to happen,” he said. “My goal is to continue to count with Casemiro, with Harry Maguire, that he has the same problem. I don’t know what is going to happen, but let’s focus on this on this season.

“I’m really happy with Casemiro. It’s really important. I’m really happy with Harry. But I know what you guys are asking. Let’s focus on this season and then we’ll see in the next season.”

The next question was whether Amorim feels there is an opportunity to exceed expectations this season and achieve a good position in the league.

“What I think is that we can win any game,” he replied. “If we have this opportunity, let’s make everything to win. Let’s try to address every detail to try to win every game.

“I don’t want to talk about the new goal. You said yourself that everything is so close. Is everything so close up and everything so close down? Three weeks can change everything. It changed everything three weeks ago. We had a completely different conversation four weeks ago. So let’s focus on the next game, what we can do.

“I also agree that when you are one down, playing away, feeling in control of the game, knowing that you can be in second place near the top, We could start that second half in a different way. That I can agree. The players felt that and we talked about that during the week. Let’s focus just on winning against Tottenham. Can we win [at]Tottenham? I think we can. Let’s do everything to win the next one.”

Amorim was then asked whether he is relaxed about the fact that centre forward Benjamin Sesko has scored only two goals in 11 games.

“Yeah, I’m relaxed,” he answered. “He’s not relaxed. What I mean is that I understand how things are in football. And he’s going to struggle. That is normal. He has no experience here. And then the first impact, when everyone says that you are so good, you are the next big thing, and you hear about that with Sesko, and then you come to one club that is the hardest club. If you don’t perform every week, you are going to hear a lot of things from club legends, for pundits, for the media, and sometimes they are right.

“To have the ability to understand that is normal and still maintain your level of confidence is really hard for a young kid, and especially for a young kid that is a control freak, wants to control everything, and is not going to control everything.

“I know and I said that when I start training with Ben, he has more potential than I was thinking. He’s going to struggle and we need to understand how he likes to play also to put in our ideas. So everything, I think, I’m quite relaxed with that. He’s going to be our striker for a long term. But he’s going to have these struggles and these bumps during the ride and that is a normal thing in football.”

The follow-up question was nin regard to whether he felt Sesko would be upset by Gary Neville’s comments, when he said he is “way off” what is expected.

“Of course nobody likes to hear, He struggled a little bit and that is a fact. So let’s embrace that. It’s not personal,” the Portuguese admitted.

“It’s not nothing. That’s what I try to explain to the players. That is not personal. It’s an opinion that is going to change in three weeks. What is true today in three weeks could be everything a lie. So, of course, it’s hard to hear, but my advice to Ben is you are going to get used to it and then it’s going to be natural. It’s going to be like your Monday here. So that is part of the process and we are going to help him and we are going to protect Ben because he works really hard and he wants to succeed. So he’s going to succeed.”

Amorim was then asked “You spoke last week about how hard losing the final to Tottenham Hichy last season, they obviously won the game, you lost the game, they changed coach, this club didn’t change coach. Does that tell you the fine margins in this industry and the importance of a club backing their manager?”

“It’s completely different,” he responded. “I said already, I’m really lucky to be here. I know that. It’s important for someone to understand how lucky I am to have this opportunity.

“If you see the game, I think we deserve to win. In the end, it doesn’t matter. It’s hard to see a coach that wins the European Cup go away and the other guys stay. Sometimes it’s the difference of maybe in the future to win more important titles. So that’s I think what Manchester United is thinking. Let’s give time to the coach and see what’s happened and then we’ll see. So I just want to say about that question that I’m really lucky to have the support that I have in this club.”

The final question of the conference was about Bruno Fernandes. The reporter asked if there is a point at which Amorim will think of resting and rotating the skipper.

Amorim replied:

“We have one game per week. It’s always available. It’s really hard. I said already, we have good things on that to play just one game, but then there’s a lot of players that should be playing, should be dividing the minutes, should be fighting for their places in a different way. But we don’t have the space, so I’m not thinking about now the rotation of the players.

“In the future, yes, it’s something that Bruno needs to to understand: if in this league you want to win every game that you are a part, with European games you are going to have to rotate. So a good question just for Bruno to put in his head is that maybe next year he is going to be in rotation in the team.”

Read every word of the first part of Amorim’s presser here.

Tomorrow’s match at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, kicks off at 12.30 GMT.

Featured image Matt McNulty via Getty Images

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