United are closing in on appointing the highly-rated Sporting coach after sacking Erik Ten Hag on Monday. City have already taken from Sporting this season having secured Hugo Viana to succeed Txiki Begiristain at the end of the campaign, although there is an insistence at the Etihad that Amorim was not a leading contender to replace Guardiola.
That is in some part at least because Guardiola is still in position and if Amorim takes over at Old Trafford he will become the seventh United manager (and fourth permanent) during the City manager’s nine years in Manchester. The Blues faced off against Amorim’s Sporting two years ago in the Champions League round-of-16, winning 5-0 in Lisbon before a 0-0 draw in the return leg.
Guardiola was suitably impressed by the coach, and former Sporting star Matheus Nunes has also endorsed his former boss. However, City’s coach does not believe that United’s problems have been in the coaching department during his time at the Etihad.
“All I can talk about is the experience of playing twice against Ruben’s Sporting Lisbon team, one or two seasons ago, and the pressure was really, really good,” he said
“I spoke with Matheus Nunes, and he was his player, and he speaks highly about him. And look this season, he is unbeaten and winning all the games in the Portuguese League and the Champions League the same points as us.
“So a high manager. I hear that Man United are thinking about him, it’s because he’s a good manager. Man United don’t appoint managers who aren’t that level so the last five, six, seven years, we cannot say they are not able to lead Man United.
“What’s going to happen I don’t know, because what happened here in my experience here, doesn’t mean it works for the other ones. Everyone is everyone, the manager is the team, the club, the structures, the physios, the doctors, the players, it’s many things.
“What happened here doesn’t mean it’s going to happen in another place.”
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