“You try to pick…”: Ruben Amorim speaks about wonderkid JJ Gabriel’s call-up to first team training

Ruben Amorim says JJ Gabriel is “really talented” and has explained why the 15 year old has been called up to the first team squad.

The Manchester United head coach was speaking in the embargoed section of the pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow’s Premier League clash with Brighton.

The first question of this section was about United’s new goalkeeper, Has Amorim “been surprised that the impact he’s made in just two games?”

Surprised by Lammens

“I think a little bit, because it’s hard in the moment of our club, all the speculation around the goalkeepers to have… He’s not a young kid, but he’s still young,” the boss replied.

“He coped really well with the pressure, he’s really composed, he’s defending really well. The importance of playing both feet to kick well the ball is so important nowadays, especially when you have to play against Liverpool in a more direct style. So I’m a little bit surprised, but I was expecting a talented guy. But yes, a little bit surprised.”

The next subject was whether the head coach believes there are enough vocal players in his squad besides captain Bruno Fernandes.

“I think Harry Maguire,” he said. “Sometimes players have a different style of… Dalot tries to do that. Luke Shaw is completely the opposite. He can show in some moments the way he plays when he’s so focused. He can help the team in a different way. I can look at Harry, I think Nouss[air Mazraoui] has a good impact, you don’t see it but you can feel it.

“Licha is really important on that, is really loud. So sometimes it depends on the moment and if we win more games you will feel like the confidence of everybody to start to have that role in the team.”

Keeping focus and momentum

Amorim was then asked how frustrating it will be if tomorrow, the players’ attitude is not as it should be.

“Yeah, I think let’s wait for the game. I think if you look at our wins, especially this year, it has to be a lot with the attitude,” he replied.

“And sometimes this attitude, I’m not saying that my players don’t want to win or to run, but we need to, sometimes it’s getting harder, but we need to force ourselves to do the basics. If we do that, we are near to win more football games.

“But again, I think if you look at Brighton and you see the way they play, every team that press a little bit more higher struggle with them and they won that game. So all these things we need to be prepared for that, not just against the top teams like you call it, Chelsea, Liverpool, but against these opponents that are really good and we need to be really focused and really smart to play this kind of game.”

Attention then turned to Liverpool manager Arne Slot’s comments after United’s victory at Anfield on Sunday. The reporter noted that Slot “sounded quite bitter after you beat him last week, talking about low blocks and long balls. What did you make of that? Were you surprised by his comments?”

Amorim replied:

“Liverpool is in the past. I don’t want to comment. That is not important. Important is what Fabian said, for me to try to understand what is going to happen. I understand everything.

“I’m really pleased that the team can play different games. It was important to win, but I was the first one to say that we need to play better with the ball. So I don’t care what Slot is saying, what people are saying about our team. I can watch the game and I can say we can do better. We need to do better in the future, but sometimes you need to win to you need to adapt to the to the game.

“So I don’t need anyone to evaluate my team. I can evaluate my team and I’m really clear on that. We should play better with the ball. We are going to try to do that in this in this game.

Amorim was then asked how important it is to keep the momentum going and win tomorrow to make it nine points from three games.

“Yeah, we are always talking about that, but that connects with the other question about the way we face competition,” he explained.

“If we think just about that, the way we are going to try to perform, everything that we are going to put on the field, that is the most important thing. So sometimes when we talk too much about the turning point, it’s worse. So let’s take it naturally. We won two games. It’s not a big deal. It should be sooner. Let’s go for the next game.

“It’s going to be really, really hard to play against Brighton. So let’s try to perform better than against Liverpool.”

JJ Gabriel in first team training

The next question was about Gabriel and his inclusion in first team training.”What did you see when he trained with you and will he have some more sessions with you?”, a reporter asked.

“Like everyone. I know that he’s a really talented guy and everyone pays attention with social media, but you can see that under-21s have the game, so we have less players and we try to pick some players that have talent.

“Not just for me to see for tomorrow, but for them to feel what it means to be in the first team, the difficulties of playing against our defenders, the difficulties to be in our training, the pace. So if we can use every training that we have to show the kids what they need to do to be here, it’s important, not just for JJ, but for everyone.”

The subject then returned to the low block played at Anfield last week. The reporter said “I think you said last season that you felt the players were more comfortable doing that, and you actually found that quite hard because you want to play a more proactive game. Is that still the case, or has there been any progress with that?”

“No, I think you can see it if you see all the games,” Amorim replied. “That game was different and if you have to point a team that can control the games with the ball, it’s City and you saw against Arsenal at the end of the game. So every team has to adapt and we adapt. We struggled to have long possessions against Liverpool.

“But then if you go to the Arsenal game, it was completely different. So sometimes it’s the environment. It’s some players that are in different positions that can give us more direct play than playing with a ball. So I think we want to play a different style. Our style is a different style, but I’m really pleased for the adaptation of winning games. Sometimes we are struggling, but we can manage some things to win games and that is really important. But if you judge for all our eight games that we have, you know clearly what kind of game we want to play.

Every word of the first part of the presser can be read here.

Featured image Shaun Botterill via Getty Images

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