Inside knowledge of Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola replacement plans force Manchester United action | OneFootball

Manchester United have moved swiftly for one manager having reportedly caught wind of City’s contingency plans when it comes to replacing Pep Guardiola long-term.

That is the claim from one report as the Old Trafford club move swiftly to source their ideal replacement or the recently-departed Erik ten Hag, who was dismissed on Monday morning following a 2-1 defeat at West Ham United.

Whilst Ruud van Nistelrooy was initially put in interim charge of the club, and expectations that the Dutchman may take on at least two matches, a pursuit of Sporting CP’s Ruben Amorim has opened the possibility of the Portuguese coach arriving before the weekend.

The 39-year-old has been heavily linked with Manchester City admiration in recent weeks, largely due to the club’s appointment of Sporting Director of Football Hugo Viana as Txiki Begiristain’s successor from the summer of 2025.

But amid Manchester United’s move for Amorim and the Old Trafford moving ever closer to their seventh manager since Pep Guardiola’s arrival in 2016, City have distanced themselves from any reported interest in the coach, insisting he was not on any list to come into the club.

A new report has continued to claim otherwise however, insisting that a potential leak of the Etihad Stadium club’s succession plans for life after Pep Guardiola filtered through to their former chief operations officer, Omar Berrada – now of Manchester United.

That is according to the information of MailSport’s Chris Wheeler, who reports that there is a ‘strong suspicion’ that United have moved for Ruben Amorim as CEO Omar Berrada has ‘inside knowledge’ of City’s plans to appoint the Sporting coach as Pep Guardiola’s replacement.

Whilst Manchester City may not be moving for Ruben Amorim as their Pep Guardiola successor, the Catalan coach has spoken highly of the Sporting tactician, having held conversations with Matheus Nunes over the potentially-incoming United boss.

“Only I can talk is about the experience I played twice against Ruben’s Sporting Lisboa team one or two seasons ago, and the impression was really, really good,” Guardiola told reporters this week.

“I spoke with Matheus Nunes that was his player (at Sporting CP) and he spoke highly about him,” he continued. “And look at this season, he’s unbeaten winning all of the games in the Portuguese league and the Champions League the same points with us.

“So a highly manager, so I have the feeling that if Man United, what I hear, is thinking about him it’s because he’s a good manager. So Man United don’t appoint managers that don’t meet that level.

“All the managers they’ve had in the last five, six, seven years we cannot say they are not able to lead Man United. What’s going to happen, I don’t know, and what happened in my experience here doesn’t mean it works for the other ones.”