‘He won’t come’ – Amorim explains why Gyokeres could reject summer transfer to Man Utd
Man Utd boss Ruben Amorim has given his view on whether Viktor Gyokeres could be tempted to move from Sporting CP to Old Trafford in the summer.
The Red Devils have been struggling this season in the Premier League with Ruben Amorim’s side currently 14th in the table going into the final four matches of the season.
Only four Premier League sides have scored fewer goals than Man Utd this season and Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee have taken a lot of criticism for their lack of goals.
Hojlund scored only his fourth Premier League goal of the season in their 1-1 draw against Bournemouth on Sunday, while Zirkzee has only contributed three.
And now there are plans in the transfer market for Man Utd to bring in a new striker ahead of next season with Gyokeres, Victor Osimhen, Liam Delap and others linked.
A potential transfer for Gyokeres has gained momentum in recent days with rumours about a potential ‘done deal’ for the Sporting CP striker.
When asked if he wants a ‘project’ striker like Gyokeres or a more experienced player to help the current forwards at Old Trafford, Amorim replied: “Our focus is to help our players that we have. Rasmus scored one goal in the last game.
“Again, I think you can see that Rasmus has the talent, Josh has the talent, Chido has the talent. We have to improve the players, but to improve the players individually we have to improve the way that we perform, the way we play.
“We are far from being a really consistent team that can help the strikers to score many goals. We have a clear lack of goals and that has cost us a lot of points this season, we have to improve that [play] to help the strikers to improve.”
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Pushed on Gyokeres, Amorim added: “I didn’t talk to him. But if a player only wants to come to Man United to play Champions League, then he won’t come. We want players who want to represent United, not players who want to play certain competitions.”
Man Utd beat Lyon in an incredible comeback which saw Amorim’s side score three times in extra time to progress to the semi-finals of the Champions League.
When asked what the comeback win has done for his side’s confidence, the Man Utd boss responded: “I think it’s more a club thing. Everybody knows when you play in Old Trafford, something special can happen, but then in the next game against Wolves we create a lot of situations and we didn’t score and that confidence came down a little bit.
“This season is a little bit like that. We are always searching for a great moment that can change a lot of things. We just need to be consistent. But it was a great night. In this kind of season, sometimes you have these special moments that you can take and in these kind of games, you can use that to fuel the players to do something more special.”
On Athletic Bilbao, who they play in their Europa League semi-final on Thursday, Amorim continued: “I think they have a lot of good things. I’m not going to talk about the bad things, but they are really strong as a team, they are really intense, they are really aggressive.
“Even for a Spanish team, they are really aggressive on every duel. They have great players one against one. Nico Williams is a special player. They are the best defence in Spain in the league and we are not scoring too many goals so it’s going to be a tough match for us.
“We know that in the beginning of the game, 20-30 minutes especially, they are really strong and intense and use the crowd to take the game to a different level and we are prepared for that, so we are going to face a very strong team.”
