Malacia reveals he trained alone with United's under-18s after Amorim gave him no explanation for exile

Tyrell Malacia has described the psychological toll of being frozen out at Manchester United under Ruben Amorim, revealing he was never given a reason for his exile and at one point found himself training alone with the club’s under-18 side after his fellow ‘bomb squad’ members departed.

The Dutch left-back, who left Old Trafford permanently in the summer after a loan spell at PSV Eindhoven, told BBC Sport that Amorim handed him only a handful of appearances following his return from a lengthy injury lay-off before cutting him from the first-team setup entirely. “Ruben came in when I just got back from my injury,” Malacia said. “He gave me a couple of games, but I had come back after a year and a half.”

Malacia had missed the entirety of the 2023/24 season with a knee injury, and made eight appearances after recovering before joining PSV on loan for the second half of 2024/25. When he returned to United last summer expecting a genuine opportunity, he instead found himself grouped with Marcus Rashford, Alejandro Garnacho, Jadon Sancho and Antony — players the club had made clear had no future at Old Trafford.

“I don’t know where that came from, I don’t know if it was Ruben or higher up or anything,” he said. “But I never said anything about it, I just kept working and doing my thing even though it was difficult sometimes training in a group of five.”

As Rashford, Garnacho and Antony secured exits during the January window, Malacia was left without even that small group for company. “At some point Marcus, Garnacho and even Antony left. Then I stayed on my own, training with the second team, even with the under-18s and below. It’s tough. It’s tough mentally.”

Despite the circumstances, the 27-year-old says he refused to give the club grounds to justify the treatment. “I could have said ‘OK, I’m not coming into training’. But I thought ‘that’s not going to help me’. It’s a reason for them to say ‘this is the reason you are with them or training on your own’. I just kept my head down and did the work.”

Malacia also pushed back against the perception that he was still struggling physically. “I always stayed fit since I came back from my injury, but people didn’t know that. They were like ‘why is he not playing?’”

The defender’s account adds further detail to the turbulent final months of Amorim’s tenure at United, during which the Portuguese coach oversaw a significant clearout of fringe players while the club endured one of its worst Premier League seasons in recent memory.