Ruben Amorim has given teenage striker Chido Obi encouragement that he can take Rasmus Hojlund's place in the Manchester United team after his lively cameo against Fulham.
The 17-year-old replaced Hojlund after 68 minutes of the fifth-round tie at Old Trafford and had three chances to win the tie in normal time and extra time. Obi twice fired wide before forcing Fulham goalkeeper Bernd Leno into a save as the game ticked towards penalties.
Obi wasn't called upon to take a spot-kick, with Victor Lindelof and Joshua Zirkzee seeing their efforts saved by Leno as Fulham secured progress to the quarter-final, but he made an impression with his performance.
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The former Arsenal youngster wasn't heavily involved in the play, but he was in the right place to get chances and had more of an impact than the out-of-form Hojlund. The Dane hasn't scored since December 12, a streak that now stretches to 18 games.
Obi has now replaced him as a substitute against Everton and Fulham and when asked if he could leapfrog the £72million striker into the starting line-up, Amorim suggested that place was up for grabs.
"Anything can happen in the next games, during training, we don’t have a lot of time to train but we need to see the opposition, feel the moment of the player physically, with a lot of games, because we are going to start playing Thursday-Sunday," he said.
"Anything can happen but I will focus just on the next game and not in that way I’m not going to change the striker. I will just choose the best players to win the next match."
Hojlund's drought in front of goal is part of United's problems when it comes to finding the back of the net, which is why Obi could be handed more opportunities to impress.
Although he remains raw, he has a prolific goalscoring record in age group football and while United have relied heavily on set-pieces for goals, Amorim accepts they need to offer more of a threat from open play.
"We have a problem with goals. Today we create situations but even in the last game sometimes you felt just with set pieces we are going to make some danger," he said.
"The first step is to create situations. Today we create but we have to improve that to help our forwards and strikers to score."
