What Amad did after his penalty appeal has earned praise, he can play at ‘high intensity’

Add as preferred source on Google

Amad Diallo was named among the Manchester United starters against Fulham and showed promise during the first hour.

Amad was Manchester United’s best player in pre-season, and he has been rewarded with a starting spot in the Community Shield and first Premier League game.

The downside is Amad appears to have a fairly short leash, due to the competition for places in the squad.

In both matches to date he has been substituted after 60 minutes, replaced with Alejandro Garnacho.

• READ MORE: Who is Amad Diallo? Height, Position, Transfer Fee, Salary, Career

Why Amad was not awarded penalty

The highlight of Amad’s performance in Manchester United’s win against Fulham was his driving run into the penalty box in the first half.

Amad squeezed between two Fulham players and went down, appealing for a penalty which was not awarded.

The Premier League’s new Match Centre communications clarified their reasoning, stating there was judged to be ‘no impactful contact’ on Amad.

Amad showed robustness

Amad did not bounce straight back up after he was fouled, indicating there may actually have been some ‘impactful contact’ which led to him hitting the turf.

Speaking to MUTV’s Matchday Review, Danny Webber said he liked the way Amad was able to carry on.

He explained: “Amad was going at some pace and he stayed down for a while, it was a worry.

“For a good 30 seconds he was laying still. He managed to get up and hobble and get the feeling back in his leg and get on with it.

“And that’s what you want to see. You want to see players who are robust, resilient, able to weather the challenges and play at a high intensity and go out and win football matches.”

Manchester United suffered terribly with injuries last season, and this has also carried on into the pre-season.

United fans do not want injury-prone players in the squad, ones who pick up persistent knocks, and make team selection difficult for the wrong reasons.

Amad is a player who performs at a high intensity and he will pick up knocks here and there, and he may also be the recipient of some unwanted robust challenges too.

A young Cristiano Ronaldo experienced this, and was able to learn to evade them and shake them off.

Amad will hope he did enough to retain his place in the Manchester United squad heading into next week’s game against Brighton.

He won’t want to let a minor knock lead to him coming out of the team, having fought so hard to get back in, and as Webber notes, that resilience is good to see.