Amorim offers olive branch to axed stars after Manchester derby

Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim offered axed pair Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho an olive branch after his side snatched a 2-1 Premier League win in the derby at freefalling Manchester City.

United trailed with three minutes remaining thanks to Josko Gvardiol’s header but Amad Diallo turned the contest upside down by first winning a penalty, converted by Bruno Fernandes, and then squeezing home a stoppage-time winner.

It provided Amorim’s biggest result in his seven games since taking charge and justified his decision to drop stars Rashford and Garnacho, although he insisted neither had been for disciplinary reasons. 

“Next week, next game, new life and they are fighting for the places,” he said. “For me what is important is the performance in training, the performance in game, the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you engage with team-mates and push team-mates.

“Everything is important in our context, the beginning of something when we want to change a lot of things, when people in our club are losing their jobs, we have to put our standards really high, and for that they have to fight for their place in their team.

“Today we proved we can leave anybody out of the squad and you can manage to win if you play together.”

Defeat was champions City’s eighth in 11 games, stemmed from more error-ridden play and left manager Pep Guardiola admitting he was at a loss over how to stop the bleeding.

“This year, I would say many times this has unfortunately happened,” he said. “We are not, I would say, nice in the way we play. Before it was so fluid and now we struggle for different reasons. At the end, we give away the two goals and it’s more difficult.”

Earlier, Ismaila Sarr scored twice as Crystal Palace eased their relegation worries and inflicted Brighton’s first home defeat of the season. 

Trevoh Chalobah also scored in a 3-1 win which owed much to Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson’s string of saves.