Is Amorim the best hire for Manchester United since Ferguson? - ESPN

That was fast. In the same week that Manchester United finally cut ties with Erik ten Hag, they announced their new manager: 39-year-old former Sporting CP boss Rúben Amorim.

United are paying about $11 million to get Amorim out of his Sporting contract, plus whatever it is they'll pay Amorim in salary, plus added compensation to get some of Amorim's assistants out of their contracts, plus whatever they're paying those assistants, plus the multiple millions of dollars they still owe Ten Hag after they signed him to a contact extension over the summer.

In other words: This coaching change is costing a club a lot of money. It certainly doesn't look great in the face of all of the cost-cutting done by Ineos, United's new football-operations-only owners, over the summer, but, well — I guess — Ineos finally do have their guy.

Like we did when Liverpool hired Arne Slot, let's ask ourselves some questions.

On the one hand, Man United deserve a little bit of credit: They didn't fire Ten Hag without a plan for his replacement. No, they pretty clearly had Amorim lined up, and the fact that he was willing to join the club must have played a role in why they finally decided to move on from Ten Hag. Managerial moves aren't constrained by transfer windows, so if you're not convinced you have the right coach and a better one becomes available, you should make the move. It's what Liverpool did when they replaced Brendan Rodgers with Jürgen Klopp, and I'd say that decision ended up working out pretty well.

On the other hand, this process is terrible! Amorim, who interviewed for the West Ham job over the summer, was clearly available over the summer. You could've just hired him then and not extended Ten Hag! United were awful last season!