Ruben Amorim has declared that he would rather put his 63-year-old goalkeeping coach Jorge Vital on the bench than players such as Marcus Rashford who are not giving the “maximum”.

The Manchester United head coach did not specifically name Rashford, and was talking generically, but was responding to a direct question as to whether there was any way back for the England international, with the other forwards misfiring, if he is still at the club when the transfer window closes on February 3.

Asked why Rashford was again not involved in the match-day squad, for the precious 1-0 win away to Fulham, Amorim said: “It’s the same, it’s always the same reason. The reason is the training, the way I see what footballers should do in training, in life, it’s every day, every detail.

“So, if things don’t change, I will not change. It’s the same situation for every player. If you do the maximum, if you do the right things, we can use every player.

“And you can see it today on the bench, we miss a little bit of pace to go and change the game, move some pieces. But I prefer it like that. I will put Vital on before I put a player on that doesn’t give the maximum every day. So, I will not change in that department.”

“Vital” was in reference to Jorge Vital who is United’s first-team coach and joined the club with Amorim – having been with him at Sporting – when the Portuguese was appointed last November. The pair first worked together at Braga, when Amorim was a player.

Amorim also said he could not guarantee that Alejandro Garnacho would still be at United when the window closes, with interest in the winger from a number of clubs, including Chelsea.

“Nobody knows,” Amorim said of Garnacho’s future. “Anything can happen. But he is improving in every part of the game and I am trying to find the best position for him. But, like I say, I don’t know what will happen from now until the end of the window.”

It is Amorim’s 40th birthday on Monday. “It’s not 40... I’m 50!” then he said, joking about how the United job had aged him. “After two months at Manchester United it’s 50. It’s a privilege to spend my 40th birthday here.” Later, he added: “First of all, I say things to you guys that I regret right away!”

On beating Fulham, Amorim said: “It’s a good day for us. Of course, it was not a great performance and we can see it. But we fought for the win.”

He added: “We need to improve a lot with the ball, without the ball we were OK and controlled the game. We scored and now we move on to the next game.

“Even in the second half we wanted to change something, we lack some pace and power up front. But it is what it is. We need to have ball creators, more chances. We struggle a lot in these details. But winning helps a lot to improve.

“The result, the feeling, the way we gave time to our team to have a bit of luck to win games. Let’s take the feeling, work really hard tomorrow. We have to win the next one.”

Fulham head coach Marco Silva said: “It was cruel for us. They had their first shot on 78 minutes. Our pressure was really good in the first half and we created enough chances to score a goal. Unfortunately for us it was a really lucky goal, a deflection. I think the result is really unfair for us.”