Ruben Amorim dismissed Paul Scholes' claim that his Manchester United stars showed a lack of 'enthusiasm' in their comeback 3-1 win over Southampton on Thursday evening.
United climbed to 12th in the Premier League standings as they recorded a first home win since early December but narrowly avoided a disastrous setback against the Saints.
The bottom-of-the-table visitors took a shock lead through a Manuel Ugarte own goal in the first half and held on until the 82nd minute when Amad Diallo scored his first in a 12-minute hat-trick.
Amad's heroics saved what would have been a hugely embarrassing result and the performance was criticized afterwards by United legend Scholes, who addressed Amorim in a post-match interview.
Scholes has been a harsh but largely fair critic during his retirement, picking on the United head coach for his previous claims that he wanted his side to show the right mentality against Southampton.
Amorim had praised his side's psychological approach in recent impressive performances against Liverpool and Arsenal, but warned his stars he would learn more about them in Southampton than in any other match.
Scholes told the United boss that he did not see the 'enthusiasm' that Amorim had called for when dissecting his former club's latest victory and was respectfully rejected by Amorim.
“I think you would have been looking for a bit more of that mentality, that strength, almost enthusiasm for tonight's game, which wasn't quite there for 70/75 minutes,” Scholes told TNT Sports.
Amorim was quick to respond with a response defending his stars, explaining: 'It's not just being tired, but playing in this stadium we have lost the last three games here and the pressure is different.
'We try to put pressure on the opponent in the build-up and you feel that. They cause a lot of problems between the lines. We are struggling to keep up the pressure at the moment, this team is not used to that.
“It looks like a lack of enthusiasm, Ugarte is late, Kobbie Mainoo is late, Bruno Fernandes goes out and the ball is in, then one change and Leny Yoro can't catch the man,” he added.
'These little things push the team behind and then we get nervous without the ball. Then when you have one click, one goal and one chance, you feel like the team can control the game better.
'I want to be fair to my players. It was not a lack of enthusiasm today, but a lack of speed and sometimes control of the game,” Amorim said.
A stony-faced Amorim ended the exchange with Scholes respectfully as he looks to continue United's climb up the Premier League when they host Brighton on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Scholes continued to condemn the club's underperforming stars and believes beating Southampton was a lucky escape, which continued in Amorim's absence: 'For eighty minutes that's as bad a performance as you'll see, especially against a team that was at the bottom of the league. ,” Scholes told TNT Sports.
'For 80 minutes they (Southampton) were so much better than Manchester United, in terms of passing the ball, technically and tactically. Amad Diallo was the only bright spark.
'I still think the manager will be disappointed with this performance, against a team that struggles to score goals and concede so many. Amad is the only one who can take the honors out of this match tonight.
'I thought they were a lot better tactically and technically than Manchester United. Man United were really poor.
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