Ruben Amorim part two press conference transcript ahead of Man Utd v West Ham | 4 December 2025

Just on the set-pieces again, was that something you and your staff discussed in pre-season as being something you absolutely, fundamentally, had to address this season? And also, in terms of goal scored from set pieces, you’re level with Arsenal, who most people look at as probably the best exponent of set-pieces in Europe at the moment. And you said about stealing ideas. Are they something that you specifically looked at? And is the next challenge for the team to get the defensive element of set pieces up to where your attacking and offensive set-pieces are?

“Yeah, I think we are attacking better than we are defending, but when you are defending, you need to take the ball out. When you are attacking nowadays in Premier League, you don’t need to touch the ball, just don’t allow the defender to take the ball because the ball is going to be there for the second ball. So, it’s completely different defending and attacking. I’m not going to tell you who we are stealing ideas [from], it’s from everybody. A lot of smart managers doing a lot of things, specialists nowadays. So we try to steal from everybody, then you have to think about when you put the squad [out], if you play with Amad, Bryan, Bruno, all these guys. If you don’t have Casemiro, and we suffered against Tottenham with that, if we don’t have Casemiro, not Sesko, not Harry [Maguire], so you have to make a balance, sometimes thinking, ‘Yes, the idea for the game is this one’, but if you have set pieces against, [it] cannot be this team. And our league is like that at the moment. You need to think not just the way you are going to play, but also in set-pieces. So, of course, if you look with a little bit of attention to the league, you understand that set-pieces is massive for the game. Sometimes to open the game; if you score a goal, you are in the better conditions to win the game. So, of course, we pay attention a lot, especially in pre-season, but, every week, to prepare set pieces for the for the game.”

You discussed you felt in the summer, going into the season, it was a key area that, amongst other things, you had to address?

“And we struggle a lot when we arrived. We struggled. I think we suffered a lot from set-pieces in our first games here. So, we learn with time, like any other manager.”

Josh [Zirkzee] has got his chance in the last couple of weeks to come in because of injury and he took it with that really good goal at Palace, but Kobbie [Mainoo] remains still on the bench. You’ve spoken before about players that are out of the team are naturally going to want to consider their position in January, especially in World Cup year. With games mounting up now in December, is Kobbie going to get a chance to prove his worth before the January transfer window?

“We’ll see. We could talk about Kobbie. We could talk about [Manuel] Ugarte, he’s also not playing. Josh is playing because we had a lot of injuries and we need to be also clear with that. And football is like that. You just need to be ready when the opportunity comes. When the opportunity comes, again, I just want to win. I don’t look at faces. I just want to win, and I will choose the best ones. And, of course, I think when you have more games, if something happens, you will have your chance. You just need to be ready, and you will be fine. If you are ready, if you play well, I’m not going to take it [away] from the team for any reason. I just choose for every game, the best starting XI and Kobbie is the same thing with the other guys.”