Ruben Amorim responds to Roy Keane criticism of Bruno Fernandes

Earlier this week, Erik ten Hag spoke about the modern-day player being quite soft in some ways. Do you think even though he’s spoken to you about what happened on Wednesday that Alejandro was an example of that and do you think he didn’t see the bigger picture of the team and why he was being taken off?
“He is a young kid that will learn. The important thing was that the next morning, he was speaking with me. I think we need to see small things, walking out of the pitch, because Zirkzee did the same thing and the context was different. But it was the same thing. So, we have to understand the situation, the context, the age of the players. Of course, they have to be better and understand the perception here is really important but you can deal with that the next day and move on. So, let’s just move on.”

Just following on from that, does a modern-day player need to handle criticism better and have a thicker skin, a tougher skin? Particularly at Manchester United because the focus is so great…

“I think it’s completely different for the players nowadays. Before, it was two newspapers and nothing more. With social media, it’s completely different. They are so focused on social media. You can’t go to social media without seeing news or a photo or if you read something bad, you focus on that. You can have 100 good things, but then one bad thing and you focus on the bad thing. I think it’s really hard for them, you can call it soft, but they have that access to criticism and it is really, really hard to deal with that. They need help to deal with that so it’s the modern football, and they have to be prepared for that.”

Just on Garnacho again, to clarify, will he be available this weekend?

“Yes, he has a knock. When he went to shoot, when it was blocked almost inside the box [against Ipswich]. He has a knock, I expect him to be ready but we will see, I have to wait until tomorrow.”

Just in terms of that chat you had with him about perception, did you get the impression that he fully understood what that means and he buys into all that now?
“I think he understands but like I said, they read everything. All the small things. I know the players quite well, I played for quite a while and I understand they are frustrated. He was sub [against Everton], he was playing well and he has to go off in that moment of the game. So, it’s hard to deal with everything but they have to deal with everything so I’m just trying to help them to be a better football players that understand modern football.”