MANCHESTER, England : Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim sidestepped questions about the futures of captain Bruno Fernandes and Alejandro Garnacho ahead of their final Premier League match against Aston Villa on Sunday that will cap one of the club’s worst seasons in history.
After United’s costly 1-0 loss to Tottenham Hotspur in Wednesday’s Europa League final, Fernandes said the club might have to sell him, and recent reports have Saudi team Al-Hilal set to offer around 100 million pounds ($135.36 million) for the Portugal international.
A disgruntled Garnacho sounded like he was leaning towards leaving in a social media post after Wednesday’s loss, writing: “Up until the final I played every round helping the team, and today I play 20 minutes, I don’t know.
“The final will influence (my decision) but the whole season, the situation of the club.”
Amorim addressed the media on Saturday for the first time since the loss that meant United will not be playing European football next season, and refused to be drawn into conversation about the pair.
“I always speak to my players but the focus now is on the last game,” the 40-year-old manager said. “We have a plan and we prepared for both situations, with Champions League and without. Now we have to focus on the last game.”
Amorim and his men had hoped to salvage something positive on Wednesday in a season that has them languishing 16th in the Premier League ahead of Sunday’s season finale, and so the loss in Bilbao was a huge blow.
“It was very tough and it still is,” he said. “It was harsh for us to lose that game. We were the better team, we had more chances.”
He summed up the season as “really hard”.
“I will not try to convince you otherwise, it’s been a tough season but we had that hope we could win something and that could help us to finish the season in a different way,” he said. “The way we can get up is to focus on the next game, to finish in a good way.”
“When you start thinking about the future and the squad, a new season is going to start and we will start with new ambitions and try to do better.”
Amorim had said after the Europa League defeat that he would quit with no conversation about compensation if the club’s board and fans wanted him to go.
Amorim left Sporting in early November while they were top of the Portuguese league and coming off winning the league title last season to replace Erik Ten Hag at United.
Asked if he had any regrets about taking the United job mid-season, he said: “In this moment I’m really glad that I arrived six months before we started the new season. We avoided a lot of mistakes that would have happened next season. We have avoided a lot of suffering.”
While United have little but pride to play for on Sunday, Villa are in the thick of the chase for Champions League qualification with Manchester City, Newcastle United, Chelsea and Nottingham Forest.
Villa are sixth, with the top five teams clinching spots in Europe’s top club competition.
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