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 to 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.
So, like we did when Liverpool hired Arne Slot, let’s ask ourselves some questions.