Ruben Amorim has defended Joshua Zirkzee and is adamant the forward made the ‘perfect decision’ to pass to Harry Maguire in the dying moments of Manchester United’s 2-2 draw with Liverpool.
Maguire had his head in his hands after ballooning an effort over Alisson’s crossbar from ten yards out deep into stoppage time at Anfield.
It would have capped off a fine performance from visitors United, who had endured their worst run of results since as far back as 1930 in the build-up to Sunday’s heavyweight meeting.
Amad Diallo had earlier scored his third goal of the Premier League campaign to level for the Red Devils in a breathless second half on Merseyside, in which Lisandro Martinez, Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah also hit the target.
But the two teams could not be separated and the result saw United rise to 13th in the table, while top-of-the-table Liverpool missed out on the chance to open up an eight-point lead over Arsenal at the summit.
In his post-match analysis on Sky Sports, Daniel Sturridge appeared to blame Zirkzee for Maguire’s late miss, accusing the Dutchman of ‘bobbling’ the ball into his team-mate.
Watching back replays of the move, the ex-Liverpool and England striker said: ‘Just don’t bobble it into him! You’ve got all the time in the world to pull the ball back.
‘He’s a Premier League footballer playing for Manchester United… I’m not expecting a bobble into me if you’re in that position. It’s a three-yard pass.’
In United’s previous match against Newcastle, Amorim decided to take Zirkzee off after only 33 minutes, with the Portuguese later admitting the forward was ‘suffering’ with the pace of the game.
But Amorim jumped to Zirkzee’s defence after Maguire’s last-gasp miss, absolving him from all blame.
‘For me, I think it was the perfect decision because he can shoot but he put the ball more in the centre,’ Amorim replied when asked whether Zirkzee should have shot himself.
‘The ball was really slow for Harry to score but sometimes you cannot do it. But Josh made a good decision in my opinion.’
In his post-match interview with Sky Sports, Amorim – though pleased with the performance – bemoaned his players’ lack of consistency across the early weeks of his reign.
Asked if the display against Liverpool represented a step in the direction for the club, the Portuguese responded: ‘Yes, because the expectations were so much different to what we saw during the game.
‘I think I get more mad because of the other games, so it’s even harder to understand some things.
‘This is not about the system, it’s not about the technique, it’s about something else. It’s hard to understand even for the coach.
‘It was a point, they deserved the point, but it’s just one point. I think we should get mad and disappointed, more than the other days against Bournemouth, Newcastle, Nottingham Forest. More than those days, today we need to be really disappointed.’
Pressed on whether he had passed on that message to his players in the dressing room, Amorim replied: ‘No.
‘This is because I have to calm down to say the right things.
‘We are in a difficult moment but it’s hard to not get really mad.’
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