Ahead of Manchester United’s game against Nottingham Forest this weekend, Ruben Amorim has spoken about the negative impact a lack of European football is having on the squad.
Of course, we blew our route to the Champions League when losing to Tottenham Hotspur in last season’s Europa League final. And the ramifications of that, multiplied by the early exit from the League Cup, are that several players aren’t getting enough playing time.
Speaking to the press, Amorim mentioned Kobbie Mainoo by name, but Joshua Zirkzee is another to pay the price for United’s lack of games.
We need to go to Europe because of everything. Our club needs to be in Europe, it’s hard to have a very, very good squad. Imagine for me to have Kobbie Mainoo with that [many] minutes that he’s playing, he needs more games for me to make a rotation because, with one game [a week], it’s really hard.
I have to take one of the guys that is playing to put another. When you have more games, you can divide, you can manage the group in a different way.
We are trying to use the time that we have to train to be a better team, we need to be prepared in the future to have European games. But the target doesn’t change. We have to go to Europe. To be in the top four is really hard for our moment, but we never know, we just need to focus on winning the next one.