Man Utd dressing room's stance on Ruben Amorim as INEOS fear boss will quit

Manchester United centre-back Matthijs de Ligt has thrown his support behind beleaguered manager Ruben Amorim, insisting the dressing room want him to remain at the helm. The pressure on Amorim was somewhat alleviated following Saturday's thrilling 3-2 victory over Burnley, a win secured in the 97th minute by a penalty from captain Bruno Fernandes.

This marked United's first win of the season and followed a humiliating Carabao Cup penalty shoot-out defeat to League Two side Grimsby earlier in the week. The shock loss to Grimsby intensified scrutiny on Amorim, but De Ligt maintains that the players trust their head coach and conceded they should shoulder much of the responsibility for the team's lacklustre start to the season.

When questioned if the United squad wanted Amorim to stay, De Ligt responded: "Yeah, of course. I mean, as a player, you're responsible for the results.

"They always speak about the manager, obviously, but I think as players we also looked each other in the eye after Grimsby and said to each other 'guys, the performance of this week is not acceptable'.

"It will be really, I think, bad to say that it's the manager's fault. It's mostly us and we know that. So yeah, obviously we still stand behind him, and he stands behind us, so we keep going like that. I think the result for today makes that feeling even more."

United are set to face two significant challenges when they return from the international break, with a visit to local rivals Manchester City followed by a clash with Chelsea at Old Trafford.

Express Sport reported yesterday how United bosses are still fearful that Amorim could walk away following the win over Burnley. The Portuguese coach said after: "When they put the effort in, I always love them [the players]. Even when Amad is missing that kind of goal, I love Amad if he's giving everything.

"And I think we need to understand that we should always be on this level of effort. Because even in the game, we played well in the beginning. I think we struggled when we changed the characteristics of the players because the match is not so perfect and you can feel that the team struggled a little bit, especially in the second half. But the effort was always there.

"It ended well, I think we deserved to win the game, I think we created a lot of chances, we should go to the half-time with a bigger advantage."