Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim turns 40 on Monday, a day after his teacher, Jose Mourinho. The Portuguese coach joked that he had aged 10 years after two months in charge of the Red Devils, and he is now 50 years old. But his birthday plan was to continue training and turned down the United's request to take the day off the day after the game.

Amorim explained after the game: "The Manchester United players asked for a day off tomorrow and I didn't agree, so we will train. Because it's my birthday, my gift is to work with the players who didn't play today. It's going to be wonderful because we won this game. After training, I eat with my kids."

He believes that striker Hojlund was unable to score because of a lack of training. 'He really works hard but sometimes you can see that if there's a lack of training, the team is out of touch. We can explain it, but without training, sometimes the feeling goes away. Where he should be and where the ball should go, we don't have time to build a tacit understanding."

Amorim continued: "This is something that needs to be trained, and we can only talk about it now. He's the same as his team-mates, there's a lot to improve, sometimes you play a good game, sometimes you don't. The important thing is that I see him full of desire every day and he says he wants to train and practice and that's the best improvement. But he's still a young player and he knows he's going to hit a low point and he has to keep working on the next game."

The Manchester United boss has also confirmed captain Bruno Fernandes will switch to a central midfield, with the 30-year-old Portuguese midfielder playing in both the Europa League against Rangers and the Premier League game against Fulham.

"We need more possession and at the moment I think Fernandes is the player who can improve the quality of the team's handling of the ball in the organisation." 'Sometimes we need him up front, but today I think it's more important for him to drop back.

He also confirmed that he had arranged for Lisandro Martinez and the rest of the centre-backs to attack at the right time. 'They're sometimes midfielders now because you don't have a lot of space between the two lines and you have to find those spaces. They can see the whole pitch in front of them in the game and they have to get into midfield, so it's really important. I think when the centre-backs are good on the ball, we play well. It's something that Lima does very well, he can get the ball. He has to continue to do that, and others have to improve on that."

Amorim is pleased with the clean sheet for United: "It's really important because obviously then you're closer to winning the game and it gives the team confidence. We didn't suffer too much today and that's a good sign, not just the clean sheets, it's the way we did it differently. Like I said, we need to improve a lot on the ball. Off the ball, we were good, we controlled the game and we scored. Now we're moving on to the next game."

However, United struggled to score and eventually won 1-0 thanks to a long-range shot from a centre-back. Amorim said: "I think so. Even when we wanted to change something in the second half, there was a lack of some pace and power up front. That's the way it is, we need more balls, we need to create more chances, we need to take the ball to the final third. We've put a lot of effort into these details, but we still need a lot of help to improve."

When it comes to whether there will be reinforcements in the winter window, Amorim did not give a clear answer. "We have to be careful, as you know, the club has to follow the rules. I believe that we have made mistakes in the past and cannot repeat them now. So we're focused on improving the squad, focusing on the players we have, focusing on the next game and waiting for the rest. The result, the feeling, we gave the team time to find a way to win some games. Let's take that feeling and keep working hard tomorrow because we need to win the next game."