As so many of Ruben Amorim’s predecessors at Manchester United can attest, success and failure in the biggest managerial jobs is almost as much about narrative as it is about performances. Your team might have delivered a performance of aggressive unremarkability over the course of a season, but if you can turn the story into one of winning silverware in spite of yourself, they might let you hang around. Heck, good vibes and a PSG implosion has secured full time employment at Old Trafford.
If anyone wants to tame the great blob of an elite fanbase, they need to sell a story to go with their tactical plan. The guy that hung around in Lisbon a little while longer to give his new rivals a bloody nose: that’s a compelling prologue.
Amorim’s system isn’t fool proof and he won’t have players as explosive as Viktor Gyokores. His soon to be former players did show one trait that would serve Manchester United quite magnificently if Amorim can port it over. There was a fighting spirit to them, a refusal to be cowed when all the territory and opportunities were in City’s favor. When the pressure came they kept playing their way, occasionally to a fault, and when their moments came they flew en masse towards their opportunities.
In that way, this was more prime United-ish that most of what has been served up at Old Trafford in the last decade. Rarely in that time have City looked as they have over the last week. You could drive an 18 wheeler through the spaces that Rodri used to occupy in front of the backline. But it can’t all just be his absence, can it? Any team would miss the Ballon d’Or holder, particularly when his replacement Mateo Kovacic just lacks that instinct for where opposition attacks might be heading.
In the last week, and even those hard-fought wins over ordinary opposition beforehand, City have looked exhausted. The collective brain knows what is required. They can still weave patterns, and in those 38 minutes before the Gyokores show they could have killed off this game. Even then, however, any Sporting turnover became a straight foot race to Ederson’s goal.
Their game was typified by the contrasting penalty fortunes of Erling Haaland and the other Scandinavian who eats up the ground and smashes into his duels. Gyokores rifled his two penalties home. Haaland smashed his against the bar. Both sides invited their opponent to something like a shooting drill — a real shock in City’s case — and Sporting were far more clinical than their star striker’s early miss suggested they might be.
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That does, however, mean that even this heavy-legged City found flaws in what might soon be the Old Trafford system. Those planning their post international break meetings with Amorim, starting with Kieran McKenna, a man who knows much of that United squad better than their new coach will, should have seen plenty in the early stages that points to potential weak spots.
Such is the disparity between the best and the worst in the Primeira Liga, Sporting rarely if ever find themselves in a position where their wing backs are anything other than rebadged wingers. That won’t happen all that often in England. Even Ipswich aren’t bad enough. More pertinently, Manchester United certainly aren’t good enough to assert themselves on anyone.
You could certainly imagine Diogo Dalot and Noussair Mazraoui having the same difficulties that Sporting’s wing backs had when City put their wingers high and wide. Amorim is one of those coaches who shows the world that there is nothing inherently defensive in a back three/five. However, if you can make Geovany Quenda and Maximiliano Araujo stay pushed back for most of the first half, there can be spaces to work with in front of the backline, particularly when the inside forwards are not the most natural out of possession. Easing into the final third, City could get their heads up and pick the gaps around the Sporting defense. It should have brought more, Haaland twice denied around the half hour.
Sporting were mostly left to fend on the break. Fortunately for Amorim, Gyokores is a one man counter attack. When he was matched up with 19 year old debutant Jahmai Simpson-Pusey there was no stopping the dynamic Swede, a clipped finish over Ederson making amends for an altogether sloppier effort half an hour before.
Then Amorim changed the tie. No great tactical gambit, no reshuffle of personnel: he simply sent his side out with greater intensity and purpose. This time no one was keeping Araujo from pushing on. He gave the ball to Pedro Goncalves and kept on going, simply running through the middle of the pitch without anyone deigning to get in his way.
City grew sloppier. There was no need for Josko Gvardiol to crash into Francisco Trincao when he darted into the box. This is what happens when you have lost faith in your collective defense. You find the easy way out. Instead Gyokores was handed another prime opportunity from 12 yards out. And then another before the game was up, clumsy from Matheus Nunes.
A hat trick from the superstar forward, who will surely be following his boss out of Lisbon before too long. The perfect way to end an impressive tenure with Sporting. As impressive a teaser as any Manchester United fan could wish for. Amorim is writing a story that you won’t want to put down.
