Nistelrooy’s future in limbo with Amorim arrival as the new head coach is set to bring his own staff with him.
Nistelrooy’s future at Man United is in the dark as he is yet to hear from Rúben Amorim.
United moved up to 15th place in the Europa League standings with six points after defeating Paok, the Greek champions, at Old Trafford. Van Nistelrooy’s fourth and last game as United’s interim manager will be Sunday’s trip to Leicester. It’s unclear if he will stay with the team under Amorim, and following Thursday’s victory, the Dutchman said he hadn’t heard from the 39-year-old, who takes over on Monday following Sporting’s Sunday trip to Braga.
“I’ve got to check my phone now [to see if Amorim has messaged] – we’ll see later. I think that Rúben is focusing on Braga and I focus on Leicester,” said Van Nistelrooy. “That’s it for now and it shows we are focused on the day-by-day job. Let him focus on Braga and I focus on Leicester and we’ll see after that. I’m only busy with one thing in my mind.
“I want my last game as an interim – to prepare this the best I can and give the players everything. That is my absolute focus and other than that I don’t look too far ahead. It’s too important.”
Amad Diallo, the game’s star winger, scored two goals in the second half to give United the victory. Since Erik ten Hag was fired last Monday following the team’s loss to West Ham, Van Nistelrooy has now managed two victories and a draw.
“This short spell is an important period to react since we lost to West Ham,” he said. “We needed to start getting results and that’s why I said it was important. For me it is important to carry on and build on the results of Leicester, Chelsea and Paok. We can build on a first European home win in one year. We addressed that in the dressing room, it was time to change that and we did that. Sunday is a big game for us in the league and we need to put a big performance in.
“The first half [against Paok] wasn’t good. We hardly created anything and Paok neither. We didn’t get going and our possession wasn’t good enough andwe made a lot of technical mistakes. Our shape wasn’t good, it was at times, but not long enough in the shape we wanted to play. The second half was a lot better.”