Mason Mount said Manchester United were blocking out the noise rather than getting caught up in it after under-fire Ruben Amorim claimed his players were being influenced by media criticism.
A sense of renewed hope after last season’s 15th place finish was extinguished as a stumbling start to the campaign and humiliating Carabao Cup exit at Grimsby turned up the heat on the head coach.
Amorim’s insistence on a 3-4-2-1 system had come under particular scrutiny, with the United boss surprisingly claiming in the wake of last weekend’s bruising 3-1 Premier League loss at Brentford that his players were believing the media narrative.
But Mount dismissed that after saying the team were “100 per cent behind the gaffer”, having scored the opener in Saturday’s much-needed 2-0 win against promoted Sunderland at Old Trafford.
Asked if the media talk about Amorim’s approach got to the dressing room, the United midfielder said: “No.
“For us, it’s just focusing on what the manager wants and that’s in training. And then when it comes to the games, doing exactly what he asked for.
“And I think, as you see today, we stuck to the job in hand. Everyone did their roles and responsibilities and it was a good performance.
“I think in the second half it got a bit cagey and there were times where we had to defend. We had to put the body on the line.
“The defenders were amazing, so that was really important for everyone.”
It was a rare straightforward game for United as Benjamin Sesko scored his first Old Trafford goal and fellow summer signing Senne Lammens capped an impressive debut with a clean sheet.
“I mean, for Ben, scoring his goal was so important. I’m absolutely over the moon for him,” Mount said. “And obviously, Senne coming in as well. It was a solid performance.
“Any danger of them pressing, he puts it into Ben and we work off that. I think he kind of released the pressure a lot today.
“And everyone was around him. Altay (Bayindir) was around him. Tom (Heaton) was around him before the game – and that shows the togetherness we have.
“Obviously, even in this season, we’ve gone through ups and downs, but we’re together and we’ll continue to be together with the manager, with the staff, to continue moving forward.”
Mount acknowledged the win “was obviously a big moment” given the growing pressure on the side and a result they would seek to build on after the international break at rivals Liverpool.
“I think it was massive to really start sharp,” he added. “Big for character to step up after a difficult game and we did that.
“Now we’ve got to push on. We obviously have a bit of a break now for the next game, but we need to take positives from this game and take them into the next one.”
As for Sunderland, they host Wolves on their return from a break they head into with 11 points from their opening seven matches.
That tally is just one point shy of the previous play-off winners Southampton’s paltry overall tally last term and Trai Hume said he would remain positive, whilst taking lessons from Saturday’s sloppy start.
“We know at this level, you can’t start that slow and expect to be in the game, but we came out in the second half and we were better,” the Sunderland full-back said.
“We created a few chances and probably should have taken them. We were poor in our decision making but we know that.
“We will stay as positive as we can, enjoy the international break and come back ready.
“We’re disappointed we lost the game. We know why but we’ll try and keep the positivity.”
