Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim has warned Marcus Rashford he should have voiced his desire for a “new challenge” privately, rather than create a media storm with his public comments.
After Rashford was dropped from the matchday squad for the Manchester derby, the forward hinted at a wish to leave the club, describing his departure as a case of “when”, rather than “if”.
Unsurprisingly, Rashford’s comments dominated Amorim’s press conference on Wednesday, the first half of which saw the new boss stress his desire to keep the 27-year-old and reiterate his stance that the door is not closed to Rashford.
The questions about Rashford continued, with Amorim later asked how he would have dealt with a similar situation during his days as a player.
“I would speak with the manager,” Amorim said.
He continued: “It’s hard to explain what I am going to do. I’m a little bit emotional. I need to prepare for the game [against Tottenham on Thursday] and then we will see. Let’s focus on the team, not individual players.”
It is understood that Rashford has once again been left out of the squad for Thursday’s Carabao Cup quarter-final.
Amorim did his best to keep his focus on the upcoming game and admitted that Rashford’s comments had left him in a tricky situation.
“It’s a hard situation to comment [on],” he said. “If I give a lot of importance it will have big headlines in the papers and if I say it’s not a problem then my standards are getting low. My focus is to not take the attention away from the game and the team and what we did in the last game.”