Ruben Amorim insisted Manchester United risk making mistakes in the January transfer window if they panic after Bruno Fernandes joined their growing injury list. Amorim said he expects the United captain to miss their home Boxing Day game against Newcastle and fears Fernandes will be sidelined “for a while” after being forced off at half-time in the defeat against Aston Villa.
Fernandes clutched his left calf after a sixth-minute tackle from Boubacar Kamara and was later fouled by another Villa midfielder, Amadou Onana. He was replaced by Lisandro Martínez at the interval. The Argentina centre-back played alongside Manuel Ugarte at the base of United’s midfield, with Kobbie Mainoo absent with a calf issue sustained in training on Saturday.
“I will see what we’re going to do,” Amorim said of Newcastle’s visit to Old Trafford. “I think Kobbie Mainoo is out and Bruno is out. So we will see. We are going to find solutions. No excuses. We need to win the next game and we will try to win the next game.”
Amorim made it clear United cannot attempt to hastily rectify their injury crisis in the transfer market. The United head coach said he would seek solutions from within rather than press the director of football, Jason Wilcox, and chief executive, Omar Berrada, into buying reinforcements.
“What we cannot do is to reach January and try to do everything in urgency and make mistakes and then [it’s] ‘here we go again’ with a lot of mistakes,” Amorim said. “I’m not going to get [together] with Jason and Omar and say: ‘We need a lot of players.’ Because we have a plan.
“If we have to suffer, the club comes first. Of course, we are in a moment where we need points but we need to find solutions and we are going to continue with our plan. You can feel in this moment that we are going to struggle, but we will see. We have to deal with it.”
Unai Emery revealed he was unhappy with the match-winner Morgan Rogers before he scored his decisive second goal. Matheus Cunha cancelled out his magnificent opener in first-half stoppage time. “I was not happy with how Morgan was performing in the first half, because we needed more,” the Aston Villa manager said.
“He scored the second goal because he was aggressive for the second action. He is a protagonist, a fighter, a really good guy and his attitude every day is really fantastic. When he is getting numbers like today we are proud of him and everybody.”
