Why Tottenham vs Manchester United is so important for Ange Postecoglou and Ruben Amorim
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The furore around Ruben Amorim's decision to drop Marcus Rashford for Sunday's Manchester derby and the forward's subsequent admission that he is "ready for a new challenge" has gone some way to reaffirming the scale of the Portuguese's task at Old Trafford.
As Ange Postecoglou, who Tottenham side host Amorim's United in Thursday’s Carabao Cup quarter-final, aptly quipped on Wednesday: "There’s always noise about Manchester United. Come on mate, where have you been?". Rashford has reportedly been left out of the United squad again for the visit to north London, and his situation dominated Amorim's pre-match press conference, to the point where it was easy to forget that he was there to preview a significant occasion for the club.
Rashford's future will inevitably continue to be a talking point throughout January, in spite of Amorim's insistence that he wants the forward to embrace the "biggest challenge" of being a success at his boyhood club, and is likely to prove an unwanted distraction in the manager's attempts to stabilise the club this season.
Amorim, to his credit, has been candid about the size of rebuild needed at United, calling for time and patience to overhaul the playing squad and change the culture. "It will be a long journey, but we want to win because this is a massive club," Amorim said after Nottingham Forest consigned his side to back-to-back defeats before their late win over Manchester City. "We need time and to continue to work in the same way every day.".
