Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim has spoken out about Koby Mainu’s difficult position at Old Trafford, admitting he deserves to play more this season.
Manager Ruben Amorim has admitted that Manchester United’s failure to qualify for European football and embarrassing defeat in the Carabao Cup cost Koby Mainu. The midfielder has lacked playing time at Old Trafford this season after United finished 15th in the Premier League last season.
Mainu, 20, has never started a Premier League game and did not come off the bench in the last game against Nottingham Forest. The academy product’s momentum stalled under Amorim after breaking into the squad and earning a call-up to the England squad in 2023-24.
The talented youngster was denied the opportunity to go on loan in the summer and has only played one game a week for United this term, barely meeting his qualification requirements. United’s Carabao Cup defeat of Grimsby proved particularly damaging in this regard.
And while Amorim acknowledged that Mainu’s performances on the training ground were good enough to earn him a place in the starting lineup, he suggested there was no room for him to play. Bruno Fernandes and Casemiro started ahead of the young players.
But Amorim is taking the opportunity to prepare his team. The Portuguese coach believes there were problems with the team’s schedule last season.
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“We are spending every moment preparing for the future by playing more matches and training less,” Amorim told beIN Sports. “We have given a lot of information and are working on our fitness as we need to maintain the momentum of the week with very intense training.
“When you play more games, you just worry about recovering. We suffered a lot last season. People forget we always played two or three days, which was really tough for us. But then you have opponents.
“I’m watching Koby Mainu train today and he deserves to play. But there’s one player (who has to be sent off) who is playing very well. He should have been in the Carabao Cup because I need to see Koby Mainu play, I need to see Josh. They all deserve to play. But at the end of the day, we have one more game to choose from. So we have both positions.”
For Amorim, qualifying for Europe this season is crucial simply to manage the team. “Due to various circumstances, we need to go to Europe,” he said. “Our club needs to be in Europe, but it’s difficult to have a very good team.
“Imagine, if Mainu plays a lot of minutes, he needs more games to get into the rotation, because one game (a week) is really difficult.”
“You have to take one of the players who are playing to put in another player. If we have more games, we can split up and manage the group in a different way.”
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