By Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim has reasons to be cheerful: his team scrapped to a 1-0 win against Fulham on Sunday, and on Monday, he celebrates his 40th birthday.
But that hasn’t stopped the Portuguese manager from being ruthless towards some of his players. That was quite clear when he said he would rather select his goalkeeping coach, 63-year-old Jorge Vital, than someone who “doesn’t give the maximum every day.”
In this instance, the player in question was Marcus Rashford, whose last appearance for United was in the Europa League against Viktoria Plzeň on December 12. He was on the bench for a 2-0 defeat against Newcastle later in the month but otherwise has not been part of Amorim’s recent matchday squads.
“The reason is the training, the way I see what a footballer should do in training, in life, and it’s every detail,” Amorim told reporters on Sunday when asked to explain Rashford’s absence from the team.
“So if things don’t change, I will not change. It’s the same situation for every player. If you do the maximum, if you do the right things, we can use every player … I will put Vital before I put a player that doesn’t give the maximum every day. So I will not change in that department.”
Amorim also said that United missed having a forward with Rashford’s pace on the bench to change the game against Fulham, but added that he would rather pick players who he feels are fully committed to training.
Rashford, who has scored 138 goals in 426 appearances for the Red Devils, has now gone 11 games without an appearance, and the 27-year-old could leave his boyhood club before the end of the transfer window on February 3.
United’s issues in attack were plain to see in the win against Fulham, with strikers Rasmus Højlund and Joshua Zirkzee still without a goal in 2025. Between them, they only have five goals this Premier League campaign.
In the end, it was Lisandro Martínez who rescued a win for United when his second-half shot took a heavy deflection, looping over Bernd Leno and into the Fulham net.
With the match drawing to a close, Toby Collyer brilliantly headed the ball off the line to maintain United’s slim advantage, while Rodrigo Muniz also blasted a shot over the bar as Fulham pressed for an equalizer.
The victory moved the Red Devils up to 12th in the Premier League table, still well below where the club would expect to be midway through the season.
Amorim previously described his team as the “worst” in United’s history after a 3-1 defeat against Brighton, and on Sunday he joked that he felt like he was turning 50, not 40, after a chastening two and a half months with the club. He added, however, that he “will enjoy it more” after the win.
United next faces Romanian side FCSB in the Europa League on Thursday, looking to cement an automatic spot in the last 16 of the competition.
