Manchester United have triggered a one-year extension to Harry Maguire’s contract after Rúben Amorim admitted that the club were “starving for leaders”.
Amorim, who will be without Marcus Rashford for Sunday’s daunting trip to the Premier League leaders Liverpool because of illness, admitted that the senior players in the United squad are letting down their more junior colleagues by not helping them on and off the pitch.
He feels that the lack of support for the youngsters within the squad has contributed to United’s run of four straight defeats, which has left them in 14th place in the Premier League.
“If you want to be a top team you have to be leaders and we have that in the dressing room, but [the senior players] have to step up because we have a lot of young kids in this squad and this moment is really hard,” Amorim said.
“You can look at the table but you are still Manchester United so this gap and this pressure of a big club in a really low moment, it’s hard to cope with so we need the guys who are more experienced to help the others.”
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Maguire is guilty of not pulling his weight in the leadership department too, Amorim said, but the Portuguese still thinks that the 31-year-old is worthy of a contract extension, so he will now stay at the club until the end of the 2025-26 season.
It is a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for the England centre back, whose authority at the club was all but wiped out in the summer of 2023 when Amorim’s predecessor, Erik ten Hag, stripped him of the captaincy and gave it to Bruno Fernandes.
“We are going to trigger our option with Harry,” Amorim said. “I spoke with him this morning and I told him he has to improve his game on the pitch and he also has to improve as a leader.
“We all know the situation he had here but we need him a lot here so we are going to happily trigger the option.”
Amorim also said that United are close to agreeing a contract extension with Amad Diallo, who, like Maguire, has been one of the few players to impress during United’s recent run of six defeats in eight matches in all competitions.
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The 39-year-old head coach was in a good mood on Friday, partly because, for the first time since he was appointed on November 1, he has had a full week to work with his players on the training pitch after their 2-0 loss to Newcastle United on Monday.
“We have worked on everything,” Amorim said. “The small things, the transitions, you can see the lack of possession in the last game in the first half. The control of the game, everybody was so anxious, so nervous.
“The crosses are really important, set pieces. It’s hard to say one thing, we work on a lot of things. The possession, the way we control the tempo of the game, the understanding where you should play was the main focus this week.”
Having been dropped for the previous four match-day squads, Rashford was recalled for the Newcastle game but did not come off the bench. The 27-year-old forward, who said last month that he was ready for “a new challenge”, has not trained this week and will not feature against Liverpool.
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“At the moment, he’s ill,” Amorim said of Rashford, who has scored seven goals in 19 appearances against Liverpool. “He’s not training so we’ll see in the future but he’s like a normal player. I think he’s going to be out this week as he’s not training.”
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United have not won at Anfield since Wayne Rooney scored the winner for them in January 2016 but Amorim is hopeful that his team will turn their form around and pull off a shock victory.
“I am just focused on the performance. I have not focused on losing or what could happen,” he said. “We prepared this game to win and we know what we are going to face. So my focus is to prepare the team to not suffer that difficult moment.”
Liverpool v Manchester United
Sunday, kick-off 4.30pm
TV Sky Sports Main Event/Premier League
