Manchester United have hired Sporting CP manager Ruben Amorim as their Erik ten Hag replacement, as the highly-coveted Portuguese manager will officially take over the club on Nov. 11 from interim manager Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Amorim was wanted by clubs as big as Tottenham and Liverpool in the past, and he appeared to be close to the Reds last summer as the Jurgen Klopp replacement before ultimately turning the job down.
In fact, Amorim turned down a lot of gigs, including the Brighton job as Roberto De Zerbi’s replacement, before deciding to take the Manchester United opening after Ten Hag got the sack this season.
Amorim appears to relish the responsibility of lifting Manchester United out of a dark period – a task that not even three legendary managers could do in Jose Mourinho, Louis van Gaal, and Ralf Rangnick.
According to a report from Sky Sports Germany’s Florian Plettenberg, Ruben Amorim already has his first transfer target for Manchester United in mind, and that is none other than his Sporting CP star striker Viktor Gyokeres.
The Swedish international is the most coveted player on a Sporting side loaded with talent that Amorim assembled and developed, and he’s been heavily scouted by top Premier League clubs, most namely Arsenal.
Sporting are willing to sell Gyokeres for 60-70 million euros, which is a fair price for a striker in his prime who has great athletic and technical traits, elite production, and a bevy of top clubs interested in him.
Manchester United fans will bristle at a manager signing a former player of his after how badly Antony flopped, but Gyokeres is both more productive and less expensive than the Brazilian right winger.
Furthermore, a couple of other former Ajax players have been working out well for Manchester United, as Lisandro Martinez and Noussair Mazraoui are nailed-on starters in defense.
An additional concern for Manchester United is the fact that they just signed two young strikers from Serie A in the past two transfer windows, Joshua Zirkzee and Rasmus Hojlund.
Signing Gyokeres would create a logjam at striker, and if he were to join Manchester United next summer, then that would leave Zirkzee’s future in a precarious spot just one season after joining from Bologna.
