Every word from Ruben Amorim’s embargoed press conference | Everton v Man Utd | 22 Feb 2025
How quickly do you feel their minds are changing, in terms of how they play and not their attitude to you?
“If we win, like, two games or just one game. I just ask for one game, and the next one is Everton, everything changes slowly. When you win, it’s so much easier to take all the doubts out of the minds of the players. The only way I see it is to be really confident when you transmit the image you want, the way you want to play and then to win games. If you do that, it’s going to be easy.”
You’ve spoken a lot about the system and have stuck with it. You said you stick to your idea but you haven’t always played [the back five] as, in your first job at Casa Pia, you started with a back four and then moved to this. So why did you settle on his system and why did you question yourself back then?
“It’s like we worked so many years with this system. I don’t see it as a system of a back three, a back five or a back four. I think we can adapt, passing the principles. The principles have one beginning and then we go forward, we play with three, we play with four, we play with five. I think we can adapt from that system. So I don’t see a system as three defenders or five defenders. I see principles and we can change the system, this way of playing, and we can adapt to a different system. When I started in Casa Pia, I believed it was something I needed to do. I just know how to do the things I believe, that is all.”
With the lack of senior players, have you ever considered adding to your squad with free agents?
“No, no. Not that idea. We have young players, we are working with young players. We have to really focus on that, as a club, when we have, at this moment, a lot of injuries. We should use the young players. If not, you don’t have the space for them to improve and show themselves. I think we really need to focus in the future of our club on the youth, because of the history and because of the reality of our club.”
Will there be youngsters in the squad tomorrow?
“Maybe they are in the squad, we will see tomorrow.”
