At least it is at Sporting.
I'm not getting too excited by this. It's of course always great to see City lose regardless of who they play but to get pounded by the club of your new incoming manager is absolute fairy tale stuff.
Honestly, it's lovely to see.
New United boss Ruben Amorim and his Sporting Lisbon side put on a second half masterclass against the best manager and team in the world according to Amorim himself.
Viktor Gyokeres even netted a hat-trick in Sporting's 4-1 win over our rivals in what was Amorim's final home game as Sporting manager before moving to Manchester next week.
Yes, next week 😁.
What this game showed us was how brilliant this guy is as a manager. To be able to play that way against one of the best managers of all time and one of the best teams of the last 5 years, is incredible even if City had a good few injuries.
However, Amorim did this with Sporting, not United.
That is the difference.
After last night's victory, Amorim said this regarding that win and what it means for United:
"What I can tell you is that this doesn't mean anything in particular, don't take anything from this. We cannot transport one reality to another. Manchester Untied cannot play the way we play and we will have to adapt" via The United Stand.
Even he is warning us that we shouldn't be expecting too much, at least not yet. Things will take time.
I know that people are obviously excited and overjoyed that Amorim is our new manager having seen what he did to our rivals, I get that some of it is banter towards City which is fine, but we shouldn't be getting too carried away.
When watching Sporting and their players, they look like they will do A N Y T H I N G for Amorim. They will run through brick walls for that man.
At United, we don't know whether they will run at all.
The Sporting players also know Amorim's style really well. They've worked together for a long time and understand exactly what he wants and know how to execute his plans. Their work rate on and off the ball is also incredible.
We haven't seen United players truly commit to a manager's ideals for a long time regardless of whether they believe it or whether it works or not. They inevitably stop committing to that manager's ideal leading to that manager's sacking.
This performance from Sporting against City shows even more that Ruben Amorim is one hell of a coach. Seeing his Sporting team play like that makes us all believe in him even more than we did before as to be able to perform with that group of players against City in unbelievable.
On paper, our squad is better than that of Sporting's, but the difference is those Sporting players actually believe in what the manager wants to do and to listen to him. Whatever he says, they give their all to try and execute it which results in performances like we saw last night.
Those players at Sporting are a team. They are more United than we are which is ironic considering our name, Man United.
I'm not sure we have players like that at MUFC, at least not enough of them.
I think that a lot of people see clearer now that the focus is all on those players. Yes, previous managers may not have been good enough but it all couldn't have been on the manager as to why we failed. Not all of those managers were completely useless.
How I'm feeling about Amorim is pretty much the same as I did Erik ten Hag when we got him. In fact, I felt more excited with ten Hag because now, after his sacking, I too, see clearer that it's not just the manager who may not be good enough whereas when ten Hag came, I believed it was the manager who was more of the problem and needed to go.
My eyes have been opened.
INEOS have given Amorim 2-and-a-half years at United. I hope that they give him all that time and more because I don't think it will take just over two years to see what we see at Sporting at United.
I hope that they back him completely during this time as well and not let the players throw him under the bus as they did previous managers.
If he fails but actually tried to play how he wants, then what he's done at Sporting shows that it isn't on him. If his current squad can't do it or more importantly, don't want to do it, they need to be removed.
From the Chelsea draw, other than the defence, I don't see any of the other players getting into an Amorim team. The defence was the only area that showed that they can defend, play ball and put in the work, which isn't something I can say for the rest of the team.
If INEOS want it to work with Amorim, they have to do whatever it takes to give him the correct environment and players to do so because I believe that we have a top manager coming into our club.
We shouldn't be wasting another great opportunity.
Background Images: Ruben Amorim celebrates his final home game as Sporting beat Man City 4-1 | Image credit: Getty Images Sport via Goal
Pep Guardiola and Bernardo Silva argue during Man City's 4-1 loss at Sporting Lisbon | Creator: PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA | Credit: AFP via Getty Images Copyright: AFP or licensors via Goal