Amad needs to change this issue to fulfil potential, says Lee Sharpe

Manchester United right wing icon Lee Sharpe wants to see more from Amad.

Sharpe was speaking to The Peoples Person courtesy of football betting site BetWright and was asked whether he believes Amad is doing enough at the moment to justify his place in the first team.

“His work rate’s exceptional,” Sharpe replied. “He tracks back and helps out defensively. But at times against Leeds I would have liked to have seen him go at the fullback a little bit more and take a few more risks.”

“At times there’s a little bit of safety in his game. Maybe the atmosphere in the way the team were playing, maybe that made him second guess himself because he’s not been in the team. Maybe he was playing a little bit safer. But I’d like to see him take more risks and go at the full-back because early on he gave the full-back a few problems, but just seemed to play a little bit safer at times.”

We asked the former England man whether he believes successive managers at Old Trafford might have trained the Ivorian to be more cautious as he has matured.

“Managers tell players to pick and choose the time when they do and don’t go and to not take risks. I also think a few times when I was watching [the Leeds game], people were running into his space,” he said.

“I saw Bruno running there. A few of the midfielders try and run ahead of him and take his space and sometimes it needs the midfielders and forwards to be a little bit more disciplined and stay out of that space and give him room to go and run and take on the defender.”

“So it’s not all on Amad’s shoulders, but I certainly think at times he is a little bit too keen to go sideways or backwards when he could get a head of steam up and have a go. He’s got the ability to go past people, score, create and draw free kicks around the box.”

We drew a comparison with Manchester City’s Jeremy Doku, who had attacked his full-back relentlessly in the recent 3-0 defeat of Chelsea and eventually reaped the rewards.

“With wingers it can be frustrating because you do need them to keep going and keep going because you know at some point the defender’s going to make a mistake, the defender’s going to get himself out of position, it’s going to be a ricochet, you’re going to win a free kick around the edge of the box, you’re going to get a cross in, you’re going to get a shot off that’s going to rebound and drop to one of your players,” Sharpe said. “So it can be frustrating because it doesn’t work every time.”

“City used to be a lot more of a passing team and now they seem to be allowing players to run with the ball and create one on one situations and try and beat teams that way. They are going back to old fashioned football and we need to see more of that from our wingers.”

Part one of our exclusive interview with Lee Sharpe is available here .

Featured image Stu Forster via Getty Images

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