The first international break of 2025 is coming to an end and Manchester United stars will soon return for domestic action.
Ruben Amorim may have been left cursing the timing of this international break.
Manchester United found some momentum with wins over Real Sociedad and Leicester City, but Amorim then saw his players jet off with their countries.
Danish trio Patrick Dorgu, Christian Eriksen and Rasmus Hojlund faced Portugal but ended up on the losing side.
Amorim will just want his players back at Carrington with no injury problems ahead of facing Nottingham Forest next week.
Photo by Rene Nijhuis/MB Media/Getty Images
Photo by Rene Nijhuis/MB Media/Getty Images
Dutch pundit on Manchester United’s Matthijs de Ligt
Amorim wants his United players to thrive for their countries but selfishly won’t want them coming back to Manchester tired.
Matthijs De Ligt was called up by the Netherlands, but only played six minutes of action across two games against Spain.
Summer signing De Ligt came on as a substitute against Spain last week but didn’t feature at all in Sunday’s second leg.
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The United ace was only brought on in the first game due to a defensive red card too, so he could have easily gone through this break without playing at all.
Dutch pundit and former Chelsea defender Khalid Boulahrouz has offered his thoughts on De Ligt’s situation, as quoted by Voetbal Primeur.
Boulahrouz feels that defenders must complement each other and that the current pairing of Virgil van Dijk and Brighton’s Jean-Paul van Hecke is working for the Netherlands.
Boulahrouz believes that De Ligt has ‘enormous potential’ but commits too many mistakes when playing alongside Van Dijk.
That is why Van Hecke is in the starting XI right now with Boulahrouz feeling that De Ligt just isn’t reliable enough.
“You complement each other. You have to give each other rest, not do crazy things,” said Boulahrouz.
“We also saw Matthijs de Ligt play next to Van Dijk, who made restless mistakes. Van Hecke didn’t have that at all.
“The most important thing is: what is best for the team? That is reliability. De Ligt has enormous potential, but that does not always come out. Timber has enormous potential, but you have to be reliable and that is what Van Hecke has shown,” he added.
Matthijs de Ligt has become very reliable for Manchester United
De Ligt was slammed in the Netherlands earlier this season and there has been major attention surrounding his performances.
The Dutch media still aren’t convinced by De Ligt’s national team performances, but he has been superb for United.
De Ligt helped United keep a clean sheet against Leicester City in his last Premier League outing, producing a stunning block to deny what appeared to be a clear Foxes goal.
Amorim hailed De Ligt, claiming that he is doing ‘incredible things’ in a United shirt.
All De Ligt can do is keep up that United form and hope to impress Netherland boss Ronald Koeman just as he much as he has impressed Amorim of late.