Man City have to be alert as Ruben Amorim does what Erik Ten Hag did
If his next job had not already been confirmed, this would have been seen as a dream audition for Ruben Amorim to succeed Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.
Becoming the first team in Europe since Barcelona in 2016 to put four goals past this team was impressive enough, but even more convincing was the context around it. In what could have been a distracting week ahead of his exit at the end of the week, Amorim instead showed the strength of the foundations that he has built on.
Sporting fans and Portuguese media have fully bought into the transformation of the club over the past four years, with a tifo before the game celebrating the trophies Amorim has brought to the club and journalists afterwards thanking him for treating them with respect. If there ever was any drama around his refusal to speak English to Sky Sports before the game, the coach graciously gave the broadcaster the answer they had wanted post-match.
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Perhaps most impressive though was the way he played down the result and dismissed any consequence for United from it. "Its misleading, we were very lucky today," he said after telling United fans that their team cannot play how his Sporting team plays.
It drew similarities to Guardiola, but also Erik Ten Hag...when he joined United. Until he won the Carabao Cup in his first season, Ten Hag would regularly drum in his mantra that "good is not good enough" as he aimed to raised standards around the club with a set way of playing.
At that point, Guardiola's claim that Ten Hag would have been a suitable candidate to replace him looked sound