MANCHESTER UNITED legend Paul Scholes thinks the club should delay the appointment of Ruben Amorim as their new manager.
The club sacked Erik ten Hag after a dismal start to the season on Monday and are moving fast to get the 39-year-old out his contract at Sporting Lisbon.
Man Utd are set to trigger Ruben Amorim’s release clause[/caption]
Paul Scholes says the club should hold fire in appointing him[/caption]
Man Utd are ready to pay the £8.3million release clause and Amorim is set to fly to England for talks.
It remains possible that he could be in the dugout to face Chelsea on Sunday.
However, Scholes reckons they should press pause on hiring the new man and leave Ruud van Nistelrooy in charge for potentially four weeks.
He told SkyBet‘s The Overlap: “I know he’s meant to sign in the coming days and hours, but Sporting play Manchester City next week, and Arsenal in the next three or four weeks [November 26].
“It might be a chance to give him a public interview – see how he handles the media and see how his team plays.
“In England, we don’t watch a lot of Portuguese football, so we don’t know too much.
“We see them a bit in European football and all the things we hear about him are good – exciting football, three at the back and possession based. If he comes in to do that, it could be exciting.”
Scholes believes the Red Devils must “bow to whatever the new coach wants” when it comes to transfers and a new formation.
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But the 11-time Premier League winner reckons they have missed out on the ideal boss for the job, adding: “I think Thomas Tuchel was the right one to coach Manchester United – but obviously he’s gone now with England.
“He’s someone that can manage an elite football club and win big games. He’s been there and done it.
“On Amorim, the hype feels a bit like when Ten Hag joined, he’s coming from the Portuguese league which is a bit better than the Dutch league.
“What he’s done there has been good, he looks charismatic and he has a bit about him.”
Scholes thinks it was right to sack Ten Hag, explaining: “I felt there were just too many lows over his time at the club.
“You think of the Liverpool game, the 7-0, which was devastating.
“Manchester City a couple of times have given them some bad defeats.
“This season, you think ‘will it change?’ and it didn’t quite work out.
“There were two really damning results – that Liverpool game at home and then the Tottenham game [both 3-0], I think was the last straw.”
Ruben Amorim is ‘Mourinho 2.0’ who turned Sporting from ‘walking dead’ into Portuguese champs… he can revive Man Utd
WHEN Ruben Amorim took charge of Sporting Lisbon in March 2020, one club official compared their situation to the “walking dead”, writes Jordan Davies.
Optimism and hope was at an all-time low.
But the Amorim-effect was almost instantaneous, guiding the Portuguese sleeping giants to their first league title for 19 years in 2020/21, losing just once and only conceding 20 goals.
Since then, Sporting have lifted another league title in 2023/24 – as well as two League Cups – and currently sit top with nine wins from nine this term.
He may be young, but Amorim already has an eye for rebuilding and revitalising fallen super powers with his infectious charisma and intense tactical philosophy that hardly ever wavers.
The “walking dead” at Manchester United must be praying for a similar sort of revival.
And they may just get it from one of the most talented young coaches on the continent – a man accustomed to breathing new life back into crumbling institutions such as Old Trafford.
Amorim has spent the last decade dreaming of one day gracing England’s Premier League, such was his admiration for an ex-United boss in Jose Mourinho growing up.
Often nicknamed ‘Mourinho 2.0’, Amorim spent a week with his coaching idol in an internship capacity at United’s Carrington training base in 2018, going on to cite him as his “reference point”.
United should not be expecting a mini-Mourinho, as Amorim said himself: “Mourinho is one of a kind. There won’t be another Mourinho. Mourinho is unique.”
And yet, you cannot help but compare the two.
For all the mismanagement in the Old Trafford hot seats over the years, this would be a real get – finally a slap in the face United’s Prem rivals have no answer for.
