Soccer Football - Premier League - Arsenal v Manchester United - Emirates Stadium, London, Britain - December 4, 2024 Manchester United's Harry Maguire Action Images via Reuters/Matthew Childs/File Photo
MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Manchester United winger Amad Diallo is close to securing a new deal with the club, who are also triggering a one-year extension to keep defender Harry Maguire, manager Ruben Amorim said.
"Amad is near, and we are happy to continue with Harry," Amorim told reporters on Friday ahead of their league clash with Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday.
"We will trigger our option. (Maguire) needs to improve as a leader because we are starving for leaders on the pitch."
Amorim's team need all the help they can get. They face a huge challenge on Sunday against a Liverpool squad who top the Premier League table with just one loss this season. United are languishing 14th and have lost five of their last six league matches.
An optimistic Amorim said "anything can happen in one game" as he felt his team benefited from having two training sessions this week with no mid-week games.
"If you talk about the season ... in the moment they are better than us but we can win any game," he said.
"We have to focus not on the context but on the performance. We need to improve the simple things to play these kinds of games.
"Of course, it is a difficult moment because we are losing too many matches and we are going to be facing the best team of this year, but with training... we want to improve the performance compared to the last game (a 2-0 loss to Newcastle on Monday)."
Amorim swept aside questions about United's potential activity during the transfer window, saying "I will keep that to myself. We will try to do something."
Maguire, 31, is experiencing a rough patch with United, with defensive blunders - by himself and others - leading to Newcastle's two goals on Monday.
"It is the same as Josh (Zirkzee), there are moments in the career of a player that are different and I think he coped very well with his struggles," Amorim said. "(Maguire) is a leader, he has to improve that part and he has to improve our game."
Zirkzee was taken off in the 33rd minute on Monday to a chorus of boos from the Old Trafford crowd, and headed straight for the tunnel appearing to be holding back tears.
"(Zirkzee's) situation is the same as the other players. He had that situation during a game, which is really hard for any player, but this can happen. They understand it is part of football. Sometimes you are in a good moment in your career, other times things don't happen the way you like," Amorim said.
"So he is focused, he trained very well, but we have to understand sometimes that the players feel that lack of confidence and then in the game they have difficult moments. We have to move on to the next game."
(Reporting by Lori Ewing, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
