Manchester United

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At the beginning of a season, players set goals and long-term team objectives goals are spoken about. It doesn't matter whether it's survival, a trophy or top six - there are always visions.

When you are not meeting those targets, it is difficult to keep believing that you will achieve them.

Both Spurs and United will be disappointed in their season so far but also in how they have fought. Pride is so important and it is something that has always been there in the teams I've played in. Even if you lose motivation as a player, you should always have individual pride to play for.

The bare minimum you expect from these players is effort because they are playing at such big clubs. In United's case, that was there against Liverpool and Arsenal but there was less of it against Southampton and Brighton.

That is their biggest difficulty because you need everyone to be motivated and sometimes when things are not going well, one or two players can lose it and give up. That does not help the collective.

It is hard to pull people with you when there are only a few of you that are still motivated and driven to do better.

Results and momentum help confidence and belief to come back, which in turn re-motivates players. There are still enough league games to achieve this and a few wins can soon carry them up the table.

Fara Williams was speaking to BBC Sport's Katie Stafford

Simon Stone
Chief football news reporter

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Manchester United winger Antony has been granted permission to travel to Spain for a medical to complete a loan move to Real Betis.

United sources say the deal is covering a minimum of 84% of Antony's salary, plus bonuses and will see him spend the rest of the season on loan with the La Liga side.

The Brazilian cost £81.3m when United signed him in August 2022, and he has scored 12 goals, three of which came in his first three Premier League games.

Antony has only scored one league goal since April 2023.

Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim has been speaking to the media before Sunday's Premier League game against Fulham (kick-off 19:00 GMT).

Here are the key lines from his news conference:

• Amorim was asked if any players picked up injuries in the win over Rangers and said: "Leny [Yoro] has a pain, also Matthijs de Ligt. I think was a bruise, a touch. Leny was a little bit tired - he's playing more in this moment so we have to be really careful."

• Left-back Luke Shaw, who has made two substitute appearances in the Premier League this season, is "going to be fit to train with the team" and then "he has to make extra work to improve his fitness".

• Midfielder Casemiro has been unused in 10 of the past 13 matches and Amorim said: "I have to make some choices. I want to play a style of game that is sometimes different from other coaches and I have to choose based on that. That's all."

• Captain Bruno Fernandes was praised by his manager after his late winner against Rangers, with Amorim stating: "He's a top player and then people talk a lot about his frustration, always with his arms in the air. Sometimes it's not a good thing to see but you have to see the other side. When you are under pressure, he's always the guy that wants the ball, he's always available. And that is so important - especially in the Premier League. And then he can run. And he runs a lot. He fights a lot."

• Amorim continued: "You have two sides and I have to help him manage both situations. But we are lucky to have a player like Bruno Fernandes. Sometimes he makes mistakes - like me last week. But he's really important and he has passion. This is so important to be a football player."

• On whether Marcus Rashford will be reintegrated into the squad if he remains at the club, Amorim said: "I don't know. I really don't know. Guys, it's eight days. We will see in the end of the window what happened. And then we will talk about that in the moment."

• Amorim was unsure if the late win over Rangers will give the team belief because his players are not getting to have an "internship" whereby they get to spend time training regularly as a a group.

• He continued: "Sometimes, that detail is really important. Pre-season, creating, spending three weeks together, creating something, and then you want to create something new with the players. I want them to know me in a different way, not always preparing the matches with stress. We don't have the time to do that. I think it's really important and I think it's the secret of teams. Even when you have the best players, if you don't have that feeling it's really hard to win - so I want to build something like that here. But we need time for that."

Follow all of Friday's Premier League news conferences and the rest of the day's football news

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Since losing twice at Fulham in 2009 (2-0 in March and 3-0 in December), Manchester United are unbeaten in eight Premier League visits to Craven Cottage, winning the past seven in a row.

Fulham have scored two goals in their past last five Premier League matches. Only once in their top-flight history have they netted two or more goals in six games in a row, doing so between February and April 1966.

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Gary Neville says Manchester United's "inconsistency has got to go" after an up-and-down start to Ruben Amorim's spell in charge.

United have won six, drawn three and lost seven since Amorim took over as boss but returned to winning ways on Thursday with a 2-1 Europa League victory over Rangers at Old Trafford.

But while Amorim has overseen wins over Manchester City and Arsenal, his side have suffered home defeats by Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth, Newcastle and Brighton.

"They don't choose when to work hard and when to care and when to play well," club legend Neville told BBC Northern Ireland before United's win over Rangers.

"What United players need to do is believe that when they're playing Brighton or Southampton that that is Arsenal or Liverpool.

"They can't decide or think 'it's OK today'. It's never OK at Manchester United, everyone wants to beat you."

Last week, Amorim described his team as "maybe the worst" in the 147-year history of the club after losing 3-1 at home to Brighton.

Asked for his view, Neville said: "No, I don't want to contribute to that.

"They're not doing very well and it's obvious that it's painful for United fans and everyone at the club.

"The players aren't doing very well at this moment in time but they are human beings."

The 49-year-old pundit added: "I've been there. Obviously at a very different time, but I was supported. I was lucky that I came into a club that had stability, a great manager and a great bunch of players.

"They don't have that at this moment and they have to start from somewhere and hopefully Ruben Amorim can turn this around."

Neville, who won eight Premier League titles and two Champions Leagues during his United career, was speaking to BBC News NI while in Belfast for an event at Queen's University.

Simon Stone
Chief football news reporter

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Manchester United might be having their problems this season but young midfielder Toby Collyer is living the dream.

Collyer stated his first European game for United in their victory against Rangers.

The 21-year-old joined the club from Brighton in 2022 and has featured in the last four games under Ruben Amorim and has caught the eye with the energy he brings in the centre of the pitch.

"It is an unbelievable feeling," Collyer said after the 2-1 win. "These are the nights you dream of as a kid."

Not every United player has found it easy to adapt to head coach Amorim's training methods.

However, if they can cement a place in the Europa League top eight, they will avoid the need for play-offs in February, which will create some space in the calendar.

And Collyer feels that will be a major benefit.

"Training is really intense," he said. "He (Amorim) demands a lot from everyone, which is really good. It means we can improve as individuals and as a team.

"We haven't had many sessions but the more we have, the better we will get."

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We asked for your thoughts after Thursday's Europa League etc game between Rangers and Manchester United.

Here are some of your comments:

Steve: Manchester United won by the skin of their teeth. Their performance was underwhelming, they play too many sideways passes and must be more direct - moving the ball quickly forces opponents to make mistakes. Regretfully, a long way to go to be the United we want to see every game.

Barry: Another uninspiring, error-strewn performance that once again made the opposition look better than they were. Still playing like a group of individuals and still making the individual mistakes. Could have lost the lead and game at any time, and very nearly did. Each game seems to highlight players who did OK in the previous match, only to look amateurish in the next. All this against a team thrown together consisting of teenagers and inexperienced young players. Scraped a win - just.

Stephen: We won, but Ruben Amorim needs to understand his system does not work with players he has. One clean sheet since he came and it's not like we're scoring goals.

Adam: Surely Alejandro Garnacho has to stay? Great performance and fans chanting his name. Classy Eriksen was another bright light in a somewhat dull performance. Lucky win in the end, but someone needs to look at these dodgy referee decisions - never a disallowed goal in the first half!

Anthony: I feel for the United manager. The players he has are average and many are so overpaid. It will probably take a few years to put the club in a place where it will compete for the top four.

Ben: All the narrow wins in the world can't disguise that United put themselves in these positions game after game. We were found out against Brighton after the Southampton result, as expected, and nearly blew it again. In truth, we really weren't good, and Bruno Fernandes and Amad Diallo keep digging us out of holes. But honestly, right now I'll take wins, no matter how close.

This Premier League pursuit becomes a lot easier if you take your chances.

BBC Sport has checked in on some data comparing goals versus expected goals this season.

You can see from the bar graph some teams aren't finding the goals (yellow) to outstrip the expected goals they should score (black).

Tottenham, Manchester City, Arsenal, Brentford, Newcastle, Brighton, Fulham, Nottingham Forest, Wolves and Leicester have all scored more than expected.

Wolves in particular have found the net 32 times from an expected 23.56 - a significant overperformance.

League leaders Liverpool are pretty much bang on in returning what they should, while Arsenal have outperformed, with 43 goals from an expected 37.78.

Bournemouth - 36 goals from an expected 43 - are leaving opportunities on the table.

Borussia Dortmund have stepped back from the race to sign forward Marcus Rashford, with the Manchester United player's £350,000-per-week wages proving a stumbling block. (Mail), external

Want more transfer stories? Read Friday's full gossip column

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Rene Meulensteen
Former Manchester United coach on BBC Radio 5 Live

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Manchester United only had themselves to blame. The game should have been put to bed much, much earlier.

They were dominating and with the changes that Rangers had to make they didn't really carry much threat going forwards.

I don't think [Harry] Maguire covered himself in glory [for Rangers' goal], but [Cyriel] Dessers had a great touch and certainly you think Rangers are going to come away with a point.

But as we have seen so often, Manchester United can still click into a different gear. It was a great cross from [Lisandro] Martinez and fantastic finish [from Bruno Fernandes] trough Butland's legs.

It is all about the result, all about winning for United to put a bit of a smile back on faces.

It puts a bit more confidence back in them too.

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Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim, speaking to TNT Sports: "We did well. We played better with the ball. I think we started well and then we lost control of the game because of some bad decisions but the lads did well.

"We are so near the second goal with so many chances, it's so hard but they recover.

"We are not playing our best but we regrouped from the last game. I know the opponent is different. It wasn't as fast. You can see the connections. I think we need to be more clinical in the right moments because that can help us a lot.

On finishing in top eight: "It's two weeks free to prepare for the Premier League so it's really important to stay in this position.

On De Ligt's injury: "He felt something in his leg. Also, Leny [Yoro] so we cannot risk anything. We have to win but we have to protect the players and show that everyone matters in this moment.

"We started the game scoring first, that is important. You can see that in Europe, it is quite different. We scored the first one and in the Premier League, it is not a foul.

On transfer window: "I don't know what will happen, let's focus on the games and focus on the team. Anything can happen."

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Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes, speaking to TNT Sports: "I know how much it means for the fans to win games. You really want to win games.

"We are a little bit frustrated because we started the year well here with two great games against Liverpool and Arsenal, then Southampton we had good resilience but didn't play good football. We had the game with Brighton which didn't go for us.

"We want to get through the Europa League and get to the final in Bilbao. We want to get top eight so we don't have to play two more games.

"It's not about the character. We have to prove that in the 90 minutes, we can't bring that out when we concede a goal. We concede a late goal and we have to score a late goal.

"At this club, you need to win every game. You know that if you don't win games here, it will be difficult. I hope our fans never get used to losing games. I hope they believe in this team to win games."

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Manchester United scored a 90th minute winning goal for the eighth time in major European competition - more often than any other English side (Arsenal and Chelsea with seven each).

Meanwhile, Ruben Amorim is the third United manager to win each of their first three games in charge in major European competition after Matt Busby in 1956 and Alex Ferguson in 1990.

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