Ever since it was announced that Ruben Amorim would step in as Erik ten Hag’s replacement at Manchester United, the transfer rumors linking Sporting CP’s rising standouts to the Red Devils began.
Sporting have one of the best young center back duos in European football between Ousmane Diomande and Goncalo Inacio, who have both regularly been linked to top Premier League clubs dating back to last year.
However, after Manchester United brought in Matthijs de Ligt and Leny Yoro at center back, there’s been less focus on the defenders with the vast majority of the speculation focusing on striker Viktor Gyokeres.
A breakout star in the 2023/24 season with 29 goals and 10 assists after quietly notching 21 goals with 12 assists for Coventry in the previous season, Gyokeres became one of the hottest strikers on the transfer market and could have earned a move to Arsenal or Chelsea last summer.
Instead, the Premier League stood pat, and now the 26-year-old Swedish international is blowing up even more in the 2024/25 season for Sporting with a jaw-dropping 16 goals in 11 league games to go with 5 goals in 4 Champions League fixtures, including an utter demolition of Manchester City.
Gyokeres is the most coveted name on the transfer market at the striker position, and while Amorim has said he won’t poach anyone from Sporting this winter, that doesn’t rule out a swoop for the marksman in summer 2025.
But Manchester United just spent 36.5 million pounds on a striker this past summer in Bologna breakout star Joshua Zirkzee, who was the star attacker for Thiago Motta on a fairytale team that qualified for the Champions League.
Although Zirkzee is a silky dribbler who creates chances for others and works hard for the team, he clearly was never going to be the 20-30 goal scorer that Manchester United have been desperately looking for since the heydays of Wayne Rooney and, briefly, Robin van Persie at Old Trafford.
Zirkzee, like young gem Rasmus Hojlund, is an all-arounder who can make a top scoring striker better. He can work in tandem with Hojlund or Marcus Rashford, but only if one of those two players can bag 20 in a season, which is plausible but has not yet happened for either in their careers.
A potential Gyokeres transfer would mean that Manchester United have to sacrifice one of their current forwards. Hojlund is too talented to move, but Zirkzee and Rashford are not untouchable, even if Man United would ideally want both to succeed.
Rashford is a homegrown star who has scored 17 goals in a season twice but has never put it together, bottoming out with a horrible 2023/24 campaign that he has not yet recovered from.
Zirkzee is talented and just signed, but he’s struggled so much for Man United to start the 2024/25 campaign that many are already regretting the move, noting that the former Bayern Munich prospect’s skill set never fit what the club actually needed at striker.
Amorim has the rest of the season to work with this group in what will either be a 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 formation – and most likely some combination of the two attacking fronts based on individual player performances.
That gives Zirkzee time to prove he has a future at Old Trafford, while it also gives time for Rashford to prove he isn’t a bust. Either player could conceivably move in 2025, but that’s entirely up to Amorim.
So the new coach holds the cards of Man United’s biggest name, Rashford, and Man United’s biggest attacking transfer, Zirkzee. One of those two has to get axed in order for a potential 60-80 million pound transfer for Gyokeres to be sanctioned, but, if Amorim works his magic, it may be that United don’t need a new No. 9.
It’s more likely, though, that Rashford plays well enough to finagle another season at Old Trafford, Zirkzee busts because he doesn’t score enough goals for a manager who didn’t sign him, and Gyokeres joins Amorim as his goal-scoring ace with Zirkzee jetting back to a more technical league than the Premiership.
