Ruben Amorim believes Manchester United's mistakes in previous transfer windows are impacting his attempts to do business in January as he waits for Patrick Dorgu to become his first signing.
United are close to agreeing a deal with Lecce for the 20-year-old left wing-back, but with just five days of the window to go it has been a difficult month for the club, who are balancing a precarious financial position with the desire to strengthen Amorim's squad.
The 40-year-old has inherited an underperforming squad that isn’t suited to his 3-4-2-1 system. However, after making a loss of more than £300million in the previous three years, the money has run out, and the club is concerned about breaching financial fair play regulations.
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Antony has left on loan to join Real Betis, but United are still open to offloading Tyrell Malacia, Casemiro and Marcus Rashford before Monday's deadline. Chelsea and Napoli continue to hold an interest in Alejandro Garnacho, with United reluctant sellers, although they will consider an offer they feel is too good to turn down.
That would help boost Amorim's budget and as well as Dorgu, United remain open to signing a forward on loan. But it has been a testing first window for the head coach and the £600m the club have spent in the previous three summers and a patchy recruitment record over the past decade have led to this position.
"This window is always really difficult, and we don’t want to make the mistakes of the past," said Amorim. "We have to understand the situation of the club, a lot of things are changing, we have to be careful in this type of window and you guys know the situation of the club at the moment, so it’s not easy."
Amorim's challenge at United has been made clear in recent weeks and his team are 12th in the Premier League, although they could secure a top-eight finish in the Europa League with a positive result in Bucharest on Thursday.
They face FCSB in a competition that is rising in importance, given the carrot of Champions League football for the winner, while finishing eighth or better would also mean avoiding a two-legged February play-off and landing more training time at Carrington.
"It’s always important, the feeling of winning is really important," said Amorim. "The situation of the play-off is massive for us, if we can go two weeks without any game in the middle of the week in this moment is really important.
"First thing is to win the game, we need to improve our performance, see players performing and in each position they are better to play. We have to use every game and every training to see that."
