Ruud van Nistelrooy revealed he is yet to hear from Rúben Amorim regarding his future after Manchester United finally ended a wait of more than a year for a European win.
United’s victory over the Greek champions, Paok, at Old Trafford lifted them to 15th of 36 in the Europa League table with six points. Sunday’s visit of Leicester will be Van Nistelrooy’s fourth and final match as United’s interim manager. Whether he remains at the club under Amorim is yet to be determined, and after Thursday’s win the Dutchman said he had received no contact from the 39-year-old, who takes over on Monday after Sporting’s trip to Braga on Sunday.
“I’ve got to check my phone now [to see if Amorim has messaged] – we’ll see later. I think that Rúben is focusing on Braga and I focus on Leicester,” said Van Nistelrooy. “That’s it for now and it shows we are focused on the day-by-day job. Let him focus on Braga and I focus on Leicester and we’ll see after that. I’m only busy with one thing in my mind.
“I want [for] my last game as an interim to prepare the best I can and give the players everything. That is my absolute focus and other than that I don’t look too far ahead. It’s too important.”
United’s victory came via two second-half Amad Diallo goals, the winger the contest’s standout player. It means Van Nistelrooy has overseen two wins and a draw since Erik ten Hag was sacked last Monday after defeat at West Ham.
“This short spell is an important period to react since we lost to West Ham,” he said. “We needed to start getting results and that’s why I said it was important. For me it is important to carry on and build on the results of Leicester, Chelsea and Paok. We can build on a first European home win in one year. We addressed that in the dressing room, it was time to change that and we did that. Sunday is a big game for us in the league and we need to put a big performance in.
“The first half [against Paok] wasn’t good. We hardly created anything and Paok neither. We didn’t get going and our possession wasn’t good enough andwe made a lot of technical mistakes. Our shape wasn’t good, it was at times, but not long enough in the shape we wanted to play. The second half was a lot better.”
