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Ruben Amorim says, smiling, that the decision to leave out Rashford and Garnacho was down to what he has seen from them in “training, performance [and] engagement with teammates”, which feels quietly damning.
We tried to evaluate everything – training, performance, game performance, engagement with teammates. Everything is on the line when we analyse and try to choose the players. It’s my selection. I don’t want to send a message, it’s simply evaluation. Everyone understands my decision.
There was a moment, at about 5.30pm last Saturday, when there seemed a genuine danger that Manchester United might be turning into a serious football club. But it took only two minutes and the sight of Nikola Milenkovic soaring above Lisandro Martínez for that facade to collapse. Two further weird goals later – the sort of accidents that speak of a profound carelessness – and it was clear that the banter era still has some time to run.
That was only the beginning. By the following morning, Dan Ashworth had been mutual-consented out of the club: five months’ gardening leave followed by five months of actual work, a truly magnificent piece of living satire, even before you consider the compensation United had to pay Newcastle to secure him and the hefty payoff he must have received.