Harry Maguire revealed why he believes Ruben Amorim is finding life at Manchester United ‘tough’ after his nightmare start to the job – but placed the blame on the squad, insisting they haven’t been ‘good enough’.
United slumped to a lowly 14th place in the Premier League following their dismal 2-0 defeat at Wolves on Boxing Day, a fifth loss in 10 games for Amorim.
Matheus Cunha opened the scoring directly from a corner, the second time in the space of a week that United conceded in the same fashion, before Hwang Hee-chan tapped home in stoppage time to pile the misery on the Red Devils.
Bruno Fernandes was also dismissed after being shown two yellow cards on another dire evening for Amorim and Maguire has shed light on the new head coach’s baptism of fire at Old Trafford, pointing to differences to Erik ten Hag’s methods.
‘I think it’s really tough for the manager and his team coming in because it’s not like he’s come in with a similar style to the old manager,’ said Maguire.
‘They are the opposite in terms of what they demand and what they want, so it’s tough for them because they know they want to work with the team on the training pitch and improve things and the defending principles and the set piece principles.
Harry Maguire has revealed why Ruben Amorim is finding life at Manchester United ‘tough’
United slumped to a 2-0 defeat at Wolves on Boxing Day, Amorim’s fifth loss in 10 games
Maguire pointed out differences between the demands of Amorim and Erik ten Hag
‘So it has been a tough month with games but again we don’t want to use it as an excuse. This club demands winning and at the moment we’re not.
‘It’s not good enough for us and the fans.’
Amorim has rued the lack of time available to work with his players on the training pitch, with set pieces a particular weakness. United have now conceded 10 times from dead balls this season and Maguire is concerned they are being targeted.
‘When it keeps happening, you can’t really put it down to luck, but it’s tough to take that teams have scored twice from a corner,’ added Maguire. ‘I think the Tottenham one’s a foul, that’s quite clear. I haven’t seen this one back.
‘Sometimes, with set-plays you’ve got to hold your hands up and say you can’t do much about it, but there’s others where you’ve got to look at yourselves and improve on it. I think the Bournemouth one was tough – a great header, a great ball.
‘Tonight, it’s disappointing to go down to 10 men, not really give them anything, look really solid in the second half, and to concede again [like that], especially the first of the game. Set-plays are so important in football matches and they decide games.
‘A lot of the games when they are tight and 50-50 are decided with the first goal. The first goal has been a set-play far too many times against us, and it’s disappointing.’
Maguire continued: ‘How do we resolve it? Work more on the training pitch. I think teams now are maybe targeting our area of set-plays.
Ten Hag was sacked in October but his successor has missed out on a new manager bounce
United are 14th in the Premier League and Maguire has pinned the blame on the players
‘The strange thing is that I don’t feel like we are conceding many chances from them.
‘They’ve had a few set-plays tonight and we’ve dealt with them really well and then they’ve gone and scored from one.
‘I think it’s about hard work, keep the belief and things will change. We have players who can defend the box well. They will change; we’ve just got to stick together.’
Asked yesterday whether United now need to be concerned by teams below them, Amorim said: ‘Yeah. In this moment we just have to survive and to win sometimes.’
He also added that United must forget about qualifying for European football.
‘No, no, no, no,’ he replied when questioned whether they could think of Europe. ‘We have to work on a lot of things in our club both inside and outside the pitch.’
Amorim insisted he has ‘no idea’ how long it will take for United to improve.
