The good news for Ruben Amorim this week is that Manchester United had three training sessions to prepare for Sunday's trip to Liverpool, but what they worked on at Carrington shows the scale of the task in front of the head coach.

Amorim used the final session to prepare a few details of what to expect from Arne Slot's Premier League pacesetters. However, two sessions earlier in the week were focused entirely on improving his own team, who the head coach admitted are now "afraid on the pitch."

That is an unprecedented run on the training pitches for Amorim so far, having taken over during an international break and then had a constant run of midweek games, denying him the chance to get his ideas across.

READ MORE: Wing-back call, midfield conundrum - Man United are about to find out how brave Ruben Amorim is

READ MORE: 'So much different' - Ruben Amorim explains what has changed for Manchester United this week

But with United on a run of four defeats in a row and five in their last six in the Premier League, Amorim went back to basics to try to improve his team rather than focusing too much on probing for Liverpool's weaknesses.

"Every team has their problems, even the best and we will try to find them - but to be honest I am more focused on our basics," he said.

"So rather than trying to find things in Liverpool’s shape, I’m just really concentrating on the way are supposed to play our game, the way we clearly must play to win a football match and to maintain our ideas.

"When you don’t have the basics, you can’t do it and so you have to focus on them. We have one more training session and we will focus on the opponent then, but for two days we have just been doing the basics, focusing on our idea to play football, and doing our thing."

United head to Anfield with their head coach telling them they are in a relegation scrap, while Liverpool have a healthy lead at the top of the table and are on course to draw level with their rivals on 20 league titles.

This dismal run of form has plunged United to their lowest point since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson. While Amorim said the players were hurting, he also suggested that they were feeling the pressure.

"They are anxious and sometimes afraid on the pitch," he said. “So we have to cope with that. We need the leaders to step up to help the other guys - and I’m the most responsible person here to improve the performances.

“You can see the players are trying. Sometimes they are too anxious and too afraid to play football because this is a difficult moment and I will help the players to be better.”

He also asked the fans for a little bit more patience but admitted they had already shown enough in recent years.

"I came from a different culture. What happened [with the support] in the second half of the [Newcastle] game, it’s unbelievable," he said.

"The supporters can look at the table and we lose four in the row. To be really honest I think Newcastle turned off a little bit, but the supporters were amazing. I cannot ask anything from the support. Maybe a little bit more patience. They’ve had a lot during these last years, but I can’t say anything to the supporters. They are tired of this moment and we need to do our job to help the supporters."