Update: |’So lucky’ – Ruben Amorim drops Manchester United recruitment hint ahead of Hugo Viana reunion News

Man Utd head coach Ruben Amorim enjoyed an excellent relationship with incoming Man City director of football Hugo Viana when they worked together at Sporting.

Ruben Amorim is confident he can develop the kind of relationship with Manchester United technical director Jason Wilcox that he had with his Sporting director of football Hugo Viana.

The close friends have both left Sporting this season and will soon find themselves on the dividing line in Manchester. Amorim is the head coach of United, and Viana will formally replace Txiki Begiristain as City’s director of football at the end of the season, although he has been a regular visitor to the club this year.

Amorim, 40, and 42-year-old Viana have been good friends since playing together at Braga in the 2012/13 season and their wives have become business partners. They struck on a winning formula at Sporting, turning the Lisbon side around to end a 19-year title drought in 2020/21 before winning the league again last season.

Sporting didn’t enjoy the biggest budget in Portugal, but Viana’s recruitment skills and Amorim’s coaching qualities saw them leapfrog Benfica and Porto. The position United now find themselves in is similar to the one the duo arrived in when they were in their previous jobs, and Amorim knows finding a similar chemistry with Wilcox will be key to delivering success at Old Trafford.

“It’s a different context, a different league, we were in a similar position [at Sporting], maybe lower. But this is different, here the competition is completely different,” said Amorim.

“We [Amorim and Wilcox] need to have a great connection. I was so lucky to work with Hugo, I find more or less the same. It’s not the same but more or less the same relationship with Jason, so in that department I’m completely relaxed.”

United’s recruitment under Amorim and Wilcox got off to an encouraging start in January, with the £1.5million signing of teenager Ayden Heaven looking inspired and £25million Patrick Dorgu an excellent fit for Amorim’s system.

The head coach wants more players who will be “perfect” for his position. With United’s financial situation pretty bleak, he believes recruitment must be near-perfect to get close to a league title.

“We need to be really good in recruitment,” said Amorim. “We need to know our system, the way we play, and the players have to be perfect for that position. We know what to do, we will see next season.”

Amorim suggested United could sign a couple of “big” players in the summer but clarified he meant players ideal for his system, rather than superstar names.

“I shouldn’t say [big players] but big players means different things,” he said. “It’s characteristics that we don’t have in our squad, trying to see those gaps that we have. And when I say big players, it’s not players from Real Madrid etc it’s big players in the way I see the game. And it helps [if it’s not for big money].”

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