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Manchester United has hired a new manager after sacking Dutch coach Erik ten Hag earlier this week, as the 20-time English champions fight to recover from a woeful start to the season.
Rúben Amorim has agreed to join from Portuguese club Sporting Lisbon as head coach of the men’s first team, United said on Friday. His contract will run to June 2027, and the club has the option of extending that for another year.
Former United striker Ruud van Nistelrooy will continue to lead the team on an interim basis until Amorim joins United on November 11, subject to visa requirements.
United agreed to pay Sporting €10mn to release Amorim under the terms of his contract, with an additional sum to facilitate his exit roughly three weeks sooner than his notice period would have allowed.
Amorim will be the sixth permanent United boss since Sir Alex Ferguson, the most successful manager in the club’s history, retired in 2013. The 39-year-old follows in the footsteps of compatriot José Mourinho, under whom United won the Uefa Europa League and League Cup in 2017.
The club has lurched from manager to manager since Ferguson called time on his 26 years in charge. Local rivals Manchester City have replaced United as the dominant force in English football, winning seven Premier League titles and one Uefa Champions League since the Scot’s departure.
The stakes are high following Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s acquisition of a 27.7 per cent stake in a $1.3bn deal that completed earlier this year. The American Glazer family, who have controlled United since 2005, have put faith in Ratcliffe to turn around the club’s fortunes on the pitch.
Despite hefty investment in the squad in the summer and a string of high-profile leadership appointments — including ex-Manchester City executive Omar Berrada and former Newcastle United sporting director Dan Ashworth — the team has struggled so far this season, leading to Ten Hag’s departure.
Amorim has led Sporting Lisbon to two domestic league titles but has never managed a club outside his home country. In 2020-21, he guided Sporting to its first league winners medal since 2002, when future United megastar Cristiano Ronaldo was still on the books.
The club reached the knockout stages of the Champions League in 2021-22 but crashed out in the group phase the following year. It is eighth in the competition this year.
A former midfielder who was capped by his country, Amorim retired at 32 and managed Portuguese sides Casa Pia and Braga before joining Sporting in March 2020. He won his first league title with the club in 2020-21, his first full season in charge.
Amorim will face the added pressure that comes from United’s global profile. Ten Hag enjoyed success at Ajax in the Netherlands before moving to United, where he won the League Cup and the FA Cup in his first two seasons but struggled to make his mark in the league.
Ten Hag secured Champions League football by finishing third in the Premier League in his first season in 2022. However, the following year, United finished eighth, its worst finish in the Premier League era, dropping out of Europe’s elite competition and missing out on lucrative broadcasting, commercial and ticketing revenues.
United is yet to win a game in this season’s Europa League, the level below the Champions League.
Despite having extended Ten Hag’s contract in July, United ultimately sacked the Dutchman after a 2-1 loss to West Ham United left the club languishing in 14th in the Premier League table.