West Ham’s attempts to lure Ruben Amorim to London Stadium earlier this year had us all quite excited.
The Sporting Lisbon boss certainly fit the profile of what fans wanted instead of David Moyes. Young, foreign, plays attacking football. He was going to represent the perfect appointment and it would also back up the perception that the club had ambitions to go beyond the heights Moyes has had taken us.
But after flying into London to meet with David Sullivan back in April, he swiftly returned and was immediately making a public apology for the timing of his decision to have talks with another club. One month later, Sporting were crowned Portuguese champions.
Meanwhile, West Ham appointed Julen Lopetegui and has struggled for performances and results in the first few months of the campaign.
It’s now emerging that Amorim is on the verge of taking the Man United job after Erik ten Hag was sacked on Monday, having just lost 2-1 to West Ham on Sunday afternoon. It’s suggested the 39-year-old has agreed terms with the Red Devils and the former Premier League giants have agreed to pay Sporting close to £10m in compensation to get their man.
But this morning there are noises coming out of the club that simply do not need to be made, and appear to show an element of face saving as an exciting managerial target closes in on a Premier League job elsewhere.
According to the Daily Mail, sources within the club claim the club ended up rejecting Amorim as an appointment, with the key reason being that he had only had success in one country and that his inexperience outside of Portugal counted against him in the interview process.
I’m sorry, but that’s simply ridiculous. There are countless managers who were in the same boat before arriving in England and went on to be a great success. Jurgen Klopp had only ever managed in Germany before coming to Liverpool, Mauricio Pochettino had only managed in Spain before taking the Southampton job and Antonio Conte had only ever managed in Italy before taking the Chelsea job.
So to dismiss a man’s managerial credentials purely based on how many countries or big clubs he’s managed is bizarre, especially given the amount of examples to suggest is doesn’t really matter.
What I believe these noises to be are a way for the club to mask the fact they’re concerned Amorim will prove they made a huge mistake by not pushing more to bring him to east London or the fact it was actually Amorim who rejected West Ham, not the other way around.
It’s probably a mixture of the two, and given Amorim was very quick with his apologies for having those talks suggests there is likely to be a lot of truth in the latter.
Indeed, we may never know what went on in those discussions between David Sullivan and Amorim earlier this year, but for the club to now start making noises about how they rejected him due to experience is quite telling about how insecure they are about the decisions they’ve made in finding a replacement for Moyes.
Amorim may or may not be a success at Man United but that’s really of no concern to us. The likelihood is that Amorim rejected us but the club is too proud to admit it, and instead they’re trying to save face by spinning reality to make them look better.
The actual reality is that if Amorim goes on to be a huge success at Old Trafford, it’ll make David Sullivan look even more ridiculous if what he’s saying is indeed true.
