Laurie Whitwell dropped news that we've all been waiting for as he says that Sporting and United have come to an agreement over Ruben Amorim.
We've known now for a while that this was pretty much a done deal (we've received a here we go) but we just needed to be patient over all of the officials.
While that is still the case you know that when people like Romano and The Athletic report that the deal is agreed, it is done.
However, United will have to wait a little longer to actually see Amorim in the dugout as he will only take charge of the club after the international break. This means that his first game will be at Ipswich on November 24.
Whitwell says that the fee for this deal is €11m and that Sporting wanted Amorim to be in charge for their matches against City in the Champions League next Tuesday as well as Braga the following Sunday.
United were 'satisfied' with this decision which means we will only see him be the boss in nigh on a month's time. Ruud van Nistelrooy will have more time in charge of the club than he may have thought.
This news just takes away any doubt that he WILL be the next United manager. Even INEOS Sporting Director Sir Dave Brailsford said so.
Here he is pretty much confirming that Amorim to MUFC is a done deal.
Jason Burt of The Telegraph is saying that "Sporting are expected to announce today that they have reached full agreement to allow Ruben Amorim to leave and become Manchester United’s new head coach."
So it wouldn't surprise me if we got the official confirmation that he will be Man Utd's manager some time today.
Amorim himself was coy when responding to questions regarding his future during his post-match press conference after Sporting's win 3-1 over Nacional on Tuesday night.
But the reason for Amorim only taking charge of his first game post the break is because he "could be forced to stay for up to 30 days after his release clause is triggered and the side [Sporting] look likely to exercise this option" - Daily Mail. Amorim may have to serve a notice period (of 30 days) resulting in the delay of him not being manager sooner rather than later.
With Amorim and his coaches coming in, it doesn't look good for Ruud in terms of him staying at the club in the long run (to some capacity) despite having a great audition to be part of Amorim's backroom staff after United's 5-2 win over Leicester last night. It is still unlikely that he (or any of Erik ten Hag's other coaches) will remain once the Portuguese makes his way to Old Trafford.
For the foreseeable future at least, it does appear that Ruud will be at the wheel for a little longer.
Final Thoughts
I'm a little disappointed that we won't be seeing Amorim as manager for the next game. Given how quickly things have moved after ten Hag's sacking, I think we all thought that by perhaps even yesterday, we would announce Amorim as new boss with him expected to be managing his first game on Sunday.
Having to wait until after the international break is not ideal because the longer it goes on like this under Ruud, I'm sure more people will be open to the fact that they'd want him to stay which may put INEOS in a bit of a pickle in terms of what to do with the former striker. They won't want to upset the fans if they feel this way about Ruud staying on.
I just felt that United should've tried to get Amorim in at least by next week's Europa League game against PAOK. That is a home game against a side we should be beating and will give him a chance to have a good start to his tenure at United.
Coming in post the international break makes me think that he won't have as much time to assess things at the club compared to if he joined now. At least if he is at the club by next week, he could have the international break to look over things at Old Trafford. If he comes then, it will be likely that he will have to do all his press conferences, photo shoots, interviews and so on which will last a couple of days during the break.
He also won't have many of the players as they will be playing for their countries or gone on holiday, for those who aren't on international duty.
Background Image: Ruben Amorim soon to be Man Utd manager | Image credit: Getty Images via Goal