Ruben Amorim warns Viktor Gyokeres demand that would end Man Utd transfer interest

Ruben Amorim has warned Viktor Gyokeres that Manchester United are only interested in transfer targets motivated to play for the club itself, and not those who are specifically chasing Champions League football alone.

Gyokeres has been heavily linked with United most of this season, thanks mainly to his blistering form for Sporting CP – 52 goals in 48 games – and his prior relationship with Amorim.

The current United boss oversaw Gyokeres' emergence from a player, who by the age of 23 had never played a top flight league match, into one of Europe's most-talked about 'number nines'.

The Swede is widely expected to leave Sporting for a bigger club this summer, with Arsenal and Barcelona the other sides most consistently linked with a transfer.

There has been speculation that Gyokeres is looking to join a club in the Champions League, something which both Arsenal and Barcelona can more firmly offer – in the latter's case, already guaranteed. United could also be in the Champions League next year if they win this season's Europa League, facing Athletic Club over two legs in the semi-finals this week and next.

"I didn't talk to him," Amorim said when asked about Gyokeres in pre-match build up to Thursday night's first leg in Bilbao.

"But if a player only wants to come to Man United to play Champions League, then he won't come. We want players who want to represent United, not players who want to play certain competitions."

Although United have lacked output in front of goal this season, Amorim also used the opportunity to pledge his support to existing strikers Rasmus Hojlund, Joshua Zirkzee and Chido Obi, vowing to help develop and improve them as a primary objective.

"Our focus is to help our players that we have," the Portuguese explained.

"Rasmus scored one goal in the last game. Again, I think you can see that Rasmus has the talent, Josh has the talent, Chido has the talent. We have to improve the players, but to improve the players individually we have to improve the way that we perform, the way we play.

"We are far from being a really consistent team that can help the strikers to score many goals. We have a clear lack of goals and that has cost us a lot of points this season, we have to improve that [play] to help the strikers to improve."

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