Manchester United

Four days after firing Erik ten Hag, Manchester United is hiring Rúben Amorim as its next manager.

United announced Amorim's hiring on Friday after he spent the previous four years with Primeira Liga club Sporting CP.

There had been rumblings about ten Hag's future following a disappointing eighth-place finish in the Premier League last season, but the Red Devils got redemption with a 2-1 victory over Manchester City in the FA Cup Final.

United announced in July that ten Hag's contract had been extended until 2026 after the club exercised a one-year option in his contract.

Any positive momentum Manchester United hope to build on after the FA Cup Final hasn't carried over to the 2024-25 Premier League season. The club sits in 14th place with a 3-2-4 record going into Saturday's match with Chelsea.

Ten Hag was fired on Monday, 24 hours after a 2-1 loss to West Ham United. ESPN's Rob Dawson noted United bosses made the call to sack ten Hag because they had lost faith that he would be able to turn things around.

Ruud van Nistelrooy took over for ten Hag on an interim basis, managing United in its 5-2 win over Leicester City in the round of 16 at the EFL Cup on Wednesday.

Amorim's deal with Manchester United runs until 2027 with a team option for an additional year. Van Nistelrooy will continue to manage the club until Amorim takes over on Nov. 11.

The 39-year-old Amorim had a 13-year playing career from 2003 to '16. He moved into managing in 2018 when he was hired by Casa Pia and threatened to quit following a 0-2 start if the club didn't win its third match.

Amorim resigned as Casa Pia's manager in January 2019 after receiving a one-year ban for delivering match instructions without the required coaching badges. He returned to the managerial chair later that same year with Braga and was eventually hired by Sporting CP in March 2020.

Sporting CP has a 162-33-33 record in 228 matches under Amorim's watch.

Manchester United announced it sacked manager Erik ten Hag a day after suffering a 2-1 defeat to West Ham United in the Premier League.

"We are grateful to Erik for everything he has done during his time with us and wish him well for the future," the club said.

Red Devils legend Ruud van Nistelrooy, who joined Ten Hag's staff at the start of the season, will take over as the interim manager.

Sporting CP coach Ruben Amorim "has emerged as the leading contender" to replace Ten Hag, per ESPN's Rob Dawson.

"The Sporting CP coach is aware of the interest, according to the source, as are his club, with United attempting to move quickly to name a new permanent manager after appointing Ruud van Nistelrooy as caretaker manager," Dawson wrote.

Ten Hag's fate was pretty much sealed in the summer, when Manchester United openly courted other candidates before ultimately sticking with him. It's tough for a manager to come back from being undermined to that degree.

The hiring of Van Nistelrooy did Ten Hag few favors, too. In the retired striker, the supporters had a clear alternative they could rally around if United got off to a slow start.

The managerial change is fully justified. Manchester United is 14th in the league table after finishing eighth last season. The club has opened the Europa League with three straight draws as well, so making a deep run in a winnable competition is far from assured.

The question is whether sacking Ten Hag actually solves anything.

The arrival of Jim Ratcliffe as a minority stakeholder seemingly promised change at Old Trafford. Despite only assuming 25 percent of the club's ownership, Ratcliffe and INEOS gained significant control over the football-related decisions.

The early returns of the Ratcliffe era aren't encouraging as it resembles the sort of listlessness and lack of direction that steadily settled under the Glazer family's ownership.

United not only retained Ten Hag but also backed him to the tune of €200 million-plus in transfer spending. Around €60 million of that went to two players (Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui) signed because of their familiarity with the manager from his time at Ajax.

It took Ratcliffe and INEOS nine Premier League matches to decide Ten Hag wasn't the right fit after all. In the meantime, Manchester United watched Mauricio Pochettino and Thomas Tuchel, two experienced managers linked with the club in the summer, take national team jobs.

Van Nistelrooy will presumably have every opportunity to prove he's worthy of the job on a permanent basis. He should benefit from the fact things can't possibly get much worse than they are right now.

But the underlying problems at Manchester United might be far too large for any one manager to address.

Legendary Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is reportedly set to step down from his ambassador role with the club at the end of the 2024-25 English Premier League season amid cost-cutting measures.

According to ESPN's Rob Dawson, Manchester United have been looking for ways to cut costs ever since Sir Jim Ratcliffe purchased a minority stake in the club in February. Dawson reported in July that Manchester United had deemed a quarter of their workforce redundant, putting them in position to save £45 million ($58.8 million) by paring down their staff.

Ferguson, who was Manchester United's manager from 1986 to 2013, has been a club ambassador since his retirement, reportedly earning a yearly salary of £2 million in the position.

Despite the reported decision to eliminate Ferguson's role at United, a source told Dawson that the iconic manager "will always be welcome at Old Trafford."

The source also called the move "amicable" and "suiting both parties."

Ferguson, 82, enjoyed a successful playing career from 1957 to 1974, playing for six different clubs and scoring 171 career goals.

He broke into managing following his retirement in 1974 and spent time at East Stirlingshire, St Mirren and Aberdeen before a brief stint as head coach of the Scottish national team from 1985 to 1986.

Ferguson finally got his big break at Manchester United in 1986 and went on to carve out one of the best continuous managerial runs in major European football history.

From 1993 until his retirement in 2013, Ferguson led the Red Devils to 13 EPL titles, plus he won five FA Cup titles, four Football League Cup titles and 10 FA Community Shield titles.

Most impressively, Ferguson helped United win the UEFA Champions League in both 1999 and 2008, along with runner-up finishes in 2009 and 2011.

For his efforts, Ferguson was named Premier League Manager of the Season 11 times, as well as UEFA Manager of the Year once, plus the League Managers Association's Manager of the Decade for the 1990s.

Speaking to Ferguson's importance and impact is the fact that United have now gone more than a decade since last winning an EPL title in his final season as manager. They also haven't reached a Champions League final since 2011.

There is seemingly no end in sight to Manchester United's status as an also-ran club in the EPL either, as they are off to a rough start this season with two wins, two draws and three losses, placing them 14th on the table.

Current manager Erik ten Hag has been at the helm since 2022, but he will continue to be on the hot seat if things aren't turned around quickly due in part to the high standard Ferguson set during his historic run as United's manager.

Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag's contract has been extended until June 2026.

Ten Hag's previous contract was set to expire after the upcoming season.

"While the club's review of last season highlighted areas for improvement, it also reached a clear conclusion that Erik was the best partner for us to work with in driving up standards and outcomes," Manchester United sporting director Dan Ashworth said in a statement.

The Red Devils finished last season eighth in the Premier League, the team's lowest league standing since 1990, but capped off the campaign with an FA Cup win.

Ten Hag, 54, will now head into his third season as United's manager since he was appointed in 2022. The club won the EFL Cup in his first season.

Ashworth highlighted those "two trophies in the past two seasons" as part of the reason behind Ten Hag's extension.

Ten Hag said in his own statement that "there is still lots of hard work ahead to reach the levels expected of Manchester United, which means challenging for English and European titles."

Manchester United last finished first in the Premier League during the 2012-13 season under Alex Ferguson.

Since Ten Hag stepped in to replace Ralf Rangnick at the end of the 2021-22 Premier League season, United has accumulated a 41-12-23 record in league play.

The Red Devils in 2023-24 suffered the most time-loss injuries of any team in the league (h/t Ben Dinnery of Premier Injuries) as players including Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw, Mason Mount, Casemiro, Lisandro Martinez, Raphael Varane, Marcus Rashford, Bruno Fernandes were sidelined.

Ten Hag in May cited these injuries as a reason United needed the FA Cup win to get into the Europa League.

"Any manager can always do something better, but I am two years here and I had only one time the full group of players, and you cannot progress a team with so many injuries," Ten Hag said after the Red Devils' record ninth home loss on May 12, per ESPN's Mark Ogden.

"It is like swimming with your hands behind your back. You have to keep your head above water and we are trying to do that."

Although the league record led to an "end-of-season review" by co-owners INEOS and rumors that leadership was considering other potential coaches like Brentford's Thomas Frank (h/t ESPN's Rob Dawson, The Telegraph), those injury limitations— and United's FA Cup win despite them— may ultimately have led the club's decision to stick with its current manager.

Manchester United is hoping the new "glow" gradient feature on its home kit leads to a glow up on the pitch.

The Premier League side released their new uniforms for the 2024-25 season Monday, with Adidas taking inspiration from the "Busby Babes" of the 1950s.

Manchester United is coming off its worst season in more than 30 years. The club finished eighth in the Premier League standings—its worst mark since the Premier League was founded in 1992—and failed to make it out of the Group Stage in Champions League. Only a FA Cup championship provided a small sliver of success and arguably saved Erik ten Hag's post as manager.

Ten Hag will enter the 2024-25 season firmly on the hot seat, and Manchester United will hope the new jerseys at least do a little bit to erase the memories of last season.

The most notable change between this and last season is Snapdragon taking over as the club's top sponsor. Snapdragon will replace TeamViewer, which bowed out less than halfway through its five-year deal that began in 2021.

Don McGuire, the chief marketing officer (CMO) of Qualcomm, which owns Snapdragon, said he's hoping the results on the pitch help make the new deal worthwhile. Snapdragon is paying $225 million over the next three seasons as part of the agreement.

"If we want to go deeper, it's really going to depend on the results that we see," McGuire told Adam Crafton of The Athletic. "And do we believe we could get anything more out of it? Because there is a law of diminishing returns with all things."

Despite wanting to see success, Snapdragon did agree to not penalize Manchester United if the team does not make the Champions League. United's agreement with Adidas does result in a reduced fee if the club fails to make the top league.

Manchester United approached former striker Ruud van Nistelrooy about a position on Erik ten Hag's coaching staff, according to world football insider Fabrizio Romano.

BBC Sport's Shamoon Hafez reported earlier in the week Championship side Burnley has also reached out to Van Nistelrooy to replace Vincent Kompany as its manager.

The 47-year-old had a decorated playing career, one that included a lengthy tenure at Old Trafford. He scored 95 goals in 150 Premier League appearances across five seasons, winning a league title in 2002-03 and helping United lift the FA Cup in 2003-04.

Success has been more elusive in Van Nistelrooy's coaching career.

The retired Dutch star first worked as an assistant under Netherlands national team coach Guus Hiddink in 2014 and returned to the Oranje in 2020 in preparation for the European Championship. In between those spells, he was on the staff for PSV Eindhoven's youth team.

PSV handed Van Nistelrooy his first senior management opportunity when he took over for Roger Schmidt, who exited at the end of the 2021-22 season. While the club went on to match its Eredivisie runner-up finish in 2022-23, he abruptly resigned with one match remaining and cited a lack of organizational support.

Hiring Van Nistelrooy would make sense for a number of reasons for Manchester United. Though much has changed behind the scenes since his departure in 2006, he has a general familiarity with the club. Bringing another Dutchman onto the staff may help Ten Hag better get his message across to the players as well.

Having said that, the presence of a club legend such as Van Nistelrooy in an official capacity might only add to the pressure on Ten Hag. It's easy to foresee plenty of supporters calling for Van Nistelrooy to take over in the event United struggles out of the gate.

This could all be a moot point because managing Burnley, which got relegated after earning promotion to the Premier League in 2023, could be an attractive vacancy. Kompany parlayed his time with the Clarets into landing the Bayern Munich job this summer despite their relegation.

Were Van Nistelrooy to navigate Burnley back to the top division, it would burnish his reputation more than working as an assistant at United could.