Ru's tunnel vision leaves Mainoo a simple decision

IT is fair to say Ruben Amorim is coming in for some serious flak over his treatment of Manchester United ace Kobbie Mainoo.

- ANDY DUNN

The Portuguese head coach, of course, stresses that his treatment of Mainoo is standard manager-player stuff.

Manager watches player in training, manager doesn't think player is good enough to start for the first team, manager puts him on the bench. End of story.

It would be quite straightforward if the player was not widely seen as one of the most exciting midfield talents in the country, who, as a 19-year-old, started for England in the Euro 2024 Final, having been a goalscoring man of the match in the FA Cup Final a few weeks earlier.

It would be quite straightforward if the team the manager does select was pulling up trees on a regular basis. Instead, Manchester United are, to be brutally honest, still fairly nondescript. They are not spectacularly good but they are not spectacularly bad.

As a rule, they don't rip teams apart but nor are they ripped apart.

Of their six Premier League wins, four have been by a single-goal margin, two by a two-goal margin.