Ruben Amorim's Man City v Utd admission says it all as he 'can't treat it as normal derby'

In the run-up to his inaugural Manchester derby, Ruben Amorim has expressed excitement yet acknowledges that the contest may lack the usual edge since neither United nor City are vying for the title this season.

With City experiencing their worst sequence under Pep Guardiola – a surprising eight losses and one draw from ten outings has resulted in a fall to fourth, trailing Liverpool by eight points – while United languish in 13th place, Amorim suggests the fixture doesn’t carry the same weight it historically did when the two sides were title contenders.

“It should be like two great teams fighting for the title, and it’s not that at the moment,” said Amorim. Emphasising his own priorities, he added: “I just want to improve the team, so I cannot treat it like a normal derby.

“So it’s just one more game with a very good opponent. Both teams are struggling at the moment, so I hope in future I can feel that real feeling of a derby. But my goal now is to improve the team and win games – and we’ll try to win this game.”

When quizzed on whether now was an ideal moment to take on City, Amorim refused to give a clear answer, stating: “I never think about these things. We will face a great opponent and I’m more focused on our problems. We have a lot of issues here.

“The great teams can respond at any moment and I think they are in a better place than us in terms of understanding the game, the way they play, the confidence they have. Even in these kind of moments, we have a lot to focus on in our own team.

“Of course we have a strategy to try to win the game, like it should be. But we’re focused just on our team and what we should do on Sunday to win the game.

“I think we are improving and, if you see the transitions, you can see that we are improving on our speed. Sometimes we can’t do it, but we are training and I can feel it in the team.”

Addressing rumours linking him with Manchester City, Amorim clarified that there had never been any contact, adding: “Never. I never heard from them and this was my only option.

“When Manchester United talked to me, I had no doubts. I had already something in my mind that [the United job] could be a possibility. With Manchester City or Viana? Nothing about that.”

In light of recent mistakes made by goalkeeper Andre Onana, Amorim said he would work with the shot-stopper to eradicate the individual errors: “You have to take it like it is. He already had, in the past, a past situation like that and we have to work on this.”

“If you see the way we play, we’re trying to build up a lot with the goalkeeper making the pass with Matthijs De Ligt. This time we had a little bit of a disconnect during the play and when we tried this, we suffered a goal, a difficult goal for us.”