Ruben Amorim has admitted it is “not a good thing” that his Manchester United line-up is being leaked before matches.
The United team spread on social media on Saturday evening ahead of their clash with Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
As revealed online, Amorim left out Marcus Rashford and top scorer Alejandro Garnacho from the matchday squad, later explaining: “It’s important for me the performance in training, the performance in game, the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you engage with the team-mates, the way you push your team-mates.”
The leaked teamsheet did not appear to affect United’s success as they came back from a goal down to beat the champions 2-1 thanks to a late winner by Amad Diallo.
Afterwards, Amorim said he was aware of the leak coming out of his dressing room.
“I know that story,” the manager said, via the club’s official website. “I don’t know, I think it’s impossible to fix nowadays because you have a lot of people in the club, the players talk with agents.
“I don’t know, you can talk with friends, so it’s hard to know. It’s not a good thing but let’s move on and go to the next one and see if they find the next starting XI.”
Rashford was substituted after 56 minutes of United’s Europa League match against Viktoria Plzen on Thursday and has scored three goals in six appearances under Amorim, while Garnacho, who scored in United’s FA Cup final win against City in May, came off the bench in that game.
“If they train well with the talent they have, we will be so much better with both of them (Rashford and Garnacho). But they have to work hard,” Amorim said, adding that both players had been in training on the morning of the game. “Today, they train really hard, so it’s a good thing.”
Team leaks are common in the Premier League and United’s line-up has often been public knowledge hours before kick-off, but it was the early timing ahead of such a significant match which raised eyebrows at Old Trafford.
In 2022, Gary Neville criticised the players passing on information and commented on one such leak: “What they do not realise is that unfortunately, when they go to the media then those media people go to us – so we know who is briefing … The reality is that we do not like it, but we know who it is. We are not going to throw people under a bus here because we have that journalistic respect.”
