MU step up Gyokeres pursuit as Amorim targets reunion with three more stars

Manchester United have scouts at Sporting Lisbon’s Champions League clash with Arsenal on what will be another big night for Viktor Gyokeres.

Manchester City are among the other Premier League clubs in attendance at the Estadio Jose Alvalade on Tuesday amid growing interest in the hottest striker in Europe.

There isn’t much that United boss Ruben Amorim doesn’t know about Gyokeres, having taken the Sweden striker from Coventry City to Sporting in the summer of 2023 and seen him score 67 goals in 69 games. It included a hat-trick against City in Amorim’s last Champions League match in charge of the Portuguese champions earlier this month.

Sporting’s director of football Hugo Viana is joining City at the end of the season and is likely to lead a rival bid for the 26-year-old former Brighton player.

United have made signing a centre-forward their priority, although Amorim has promised not to raid his old club in January when money will be particularly tight anyway.

United spent another £200million on transfers in the summer and between £15-20m to bring in Amorim and replace Erik ten Hag and other coaching staff. The club’s latest financial figures on Tuesday showed that the outstanding balance on United’s revolving credit facility grew from £35.6m in on June 30 to £232.3m on September 30.

Amorim has already made it clear that other changes will need to be made to United’s squad to adapt to his 3-4-3 philosophy, and will hope to strengthen in other areas too.

Left-back Nuno Mendes could be an option, having played under him at Sporting before moving to Paris Saint-Germain. The 22-year-year-old shares the same agent as Bruno Fernandes.

Confidential revealed earlier this month that Sporting forwards Geovany Quenda and Pedro Goncalves could be long-term targets in addition to Gyokeres.

Chido’s 17 going under… contract

Star academy striker Chido Obi-Martin will toast his 17th birthday on Friday with the announcement that he has been upgraded to a professional contract.

Players are not allowed to sign pro deals prior to turning 17 so the youngster swapped Arsenal for Manchester United on an initial scholar contract at the start of October, with an automatic trigger put in place for his 17th birthday.

The striker has five goals in six games having been eased into United’s high-flying Under 18s, and he flew out with the Under 19s on Tuesday ahead of making his UEFA Youth League debut with the club in their first leg qualifier against AZ Alkmaar.

Music stars come out for Amorim

Ed Sheeran managed to land himself on centre stage after United’s draw at Ipswich in Ruben Amorim’s first game, but Confidential can reveal that he wasn’t the only famous musician at Portman Road.

Matt Bellamy, lead singer of Muse, was there as a boardroom guest of United. There were rumours that Stormzy would also be at the game, but the rapper didn’t show up in the end.

Ipswich fan Sheeran, who sponsors the team’s kit and owns a minority stake in the club, accidentally interrupted Amorim’s live post-match interview with the Sky Sports team on the pitch, and declined Jamie Redknapp’s invitation to join the chat.

Posting on social media afterwards, an embarrassed Sheeran wrote: ‘Apologies if I offended Amorim yesterday, didn’t actually realise he was being interviewed at the time, was popping to say hi and bye to Jamie. Obvz feel a bit of a b****nd but life goes on. Great game though, congrats to all involved x.’

Kukonki catches the eye

While he didn’t end up making the bench at Portman Road, Godwill Kukonki’s inclusion in the travelling party to Ipswich was the 16-year-old defender’s reward for impressing Ruben Amorim in training.

The youngster has really caught the eye of Amorim and his coaches so instead of being included with the Under 19s group that travelled to the Netherlands for the first leg of a UEFA Youth League qualifier against AZ Alkmaar, Kukonki was held back to continue working with the first team.

He has a varying skillset and with Amorim trying to educate players of all ages of his philosophy and understanding of the game, youngsters like Kukonki represent valuable projects.

While a first-team berth is some way off at this stage, it’s worth noting that if he continues at his current rate of development, there is a feeling among some at Carrington that Kukonki could go on to make history.

No defender has ever played for Manchester United in the Premier League before their 18th birthday. With Kukonki not turning 17 until February, time is firmly on his side.

Ruben beats language barrier

Nine Portuguese journalists travelled to Manchester for Amorim’s unveiling on Friday and some are expected to attend his first home game against Bodo/Glimt in the Europa League at Old Trafford this week – even though it lacks the glamour of his last match in Europe with Sporting Lisbon, the 4-1 win over Manchester City earlier this month.

Sky Sports reporter Gary Cotterill caused a bit of a stir in the build-up to that game by pressing Amorim to answer his questions in English – a request the 39-year-old and his press officer politely declined.

United were said to be disappointed but the fact that Sky Sports got the opening question at Friday’s press conference at Carrington to officially unveil Amorim and preview his first game away to Ipswich showed there were no hard feelings.

United also designated a separate section for the foreign media who were also seated specifically so they were in Amorim’s natural eyeline.

Given his previous encounter with Sky Sports, there was a hint of irony when Amorim checked before responding to the first question from one of his compatriots to see if it was okay to answer in Portuguese.

Fans refuse to fund brand new OT

An independent survey has revealed that 55 per cent of United fans would prefer a new stadium over redeveloping Old Trafford – but not if ticket prices are used to fund it.

Fan Coalition 58 launched their own survey after raising concerns over the club-led poll of supporters. The group had claimed ‘soundbites and comments regarding demographics’ in the results released by United earlier this month ‘raised eyebrows to say the least’.

But the findings from the new poll – answered by 21,000 fans including season-ticket holders, members and others – are markedly similar, with 55.2 per cent favouring a rebuild of United’s iconic home, compared with 52 per cent in the club survey.

However, when asked by FC58 if they still wanted a new stadium if it was funded by increased ticket prices, 84 per cent said no. The results will be shared with the club, the group said.

United fans are fearful their pockets will be hit to fund a £2billion Wembley of the North, with the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust last week urging the Glazers and Sir Jim Ratcliffe to cough up the funds themselves.

Bodo army in party spirit

With 6,500 Bodo/Glimt supporters descending on Manchester this week, plans are afoot for them to host a pre-match party at the popular Freight Island venue.

The food and drink spot can hold 4,000 people and the J-Feltet supporters’ group have arranged what they predict will be the ‘biggest Glimt pre-match party abroad of all time’. Many of the remaining fans are expected to gather at the historic Shambles Square nearby.

One Norwegian couple have even redirected their honeymoon to make it to what many Bodo/Glimt supporters say is one of their biggest away games ever.

The Norwegian champions may not be one of the bigger names in European football, but Ruben Amorim won’t be taking the game lightly after seeing them beat two Portuguese teams this season in Braga and FC Porto to sit three places above United in the Europa League table.

New job for Georgson

It made for curious viewing at Ipswich to see set-piece specialist Andreas Georgson hand over the duties to the coaches brought in by Ruben Amorim.

The Swede was appointed under Erik ten Hag, and while free-kicks and corners were not his sole responsibility, they were one of his primary roles on the coaching staff.

Although he has been kept on by Amorim and incorporated into his coaching staff, it appears set-pieces are no longer on his to-do list.

Assistants Carlos Fernandes and Adelio Candido spent much of the pre-match warm-up overseeing drills, and every set-piece in-game – both attacking and defending – saw Fernandes bark instructions from the technical area.

The most touchline action Georgson got at Portman Road was to check with the fourth official if VAR was working again, after a fire drill at Stockley Park saw the game go six minutes without the available technology.

It remains to be seen where Georgson fits in, but United say that both he and Darren Fletcher are important members of the first-team coaching staff.

Meanwhile, new analyst Eduardo Rosalino was also on duty at Portman Road having become the last remaining member of Amorim’s coaching team to be granted a work permit.

Utd keep the X-factor

We understand that United have no plans to quit X, formerly known as Twitter, and follow other clubs to Bluesky.

Premier League teams, major sports leagues and even pundits have joined thousands of others in launching an account on the new platform amid growing dissent over Elon Musk’s ownership of X.

Bundesliga sides including Werder Bremen are among those to leave X in protest at Musk’s leadership after accusing the billionaire of fuelling hate speech on the platform.

Manchester City and Chelsea have since created Bluesky accounts, but as it stands United will not be following suit.

You’ve got to hand it to Andre

Congratulations to Andre Onana who has won the Fifpro Impact Award for humanitarian work in Cameroon and other African countries.

Confidential has highlighted the huge contribution made by Onana’s foundation, working with doctors to perform more than 1,200 surgical operations over the last three years to save the lives, or improve the quality of life, of under-privileged people in need.

The Cameroon goalkeeper is the second United player to receive the prestigious award after Marcus Rashford was recognised in 2020 for his work in helping to fight child food poverty.

Onana said: ‘When I started the Andre Onana Foundation, the idea was to help blind children in Cameroon. We received a lot of support and it’s since grown to become an NGO that provides free medical care and surgeries to children and adults from underprivileged communities.

‘We bring doctors and surgeons, mostly from Spain, to perform the procedures in Africa. In July this year, we had our fourth surgical campaign where a delegation of Spanish health professionals – from nurses to paediatric surgeons – helped over 350 people in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital.’

Amir’s older than his years

Confidential was at Altrincham last week to watch United’s Under 21s beat the solid National League outfit, and it was curious to see Amir Ibragimov.

The 16-year-old was going up against players far older than himself and it was a real learning curve, ending with him grabbing a late goal to add gloss to a 4-0 win.

Ibragimov was among the first academy starlets to meet Amorim when he touched down for his first day in Manchester, and he is certainly on the radar of first-team coaches.

Academy staff are eager to keep pushing players into higher age-groups and more stressful situations. In the case of Ibragimov, coaches were pleased to see him grow into a physical battle at Altrincham.

Days later he bagged three assists for the Under 18s in a win over Leeds, and the attacking midfield is continuing to oscillate between age groups.

Coaches are exploring which players will benefit from loans in January versus which players will dip in and out of first-team sessions and the next move for Ibragimov, who is expected to remain at United, is intriguing.

Gabby’s support for Skinner

There has been a lot of discontent among the fanbase of United’s women’s team, particularly around boss Marc Skinner.

The roundly unpopular boss has been in the eye of the storm with fans for well over 12 months now, while sources close to some players have expressed their frustration with his handling of the group, who lost for the first time in the league this season away to Chelsea at the weekend.

But England and United defender Gabby George offered up a rare defence of life in United’s women’s team right now when she headed off on international duty.

‘I think every environment is different but I love being at Manchester United and being here,’ she said. ‘I think we’ve got a great squad and great staff at Manchester United so I wasn’t in a rush to get away.

‘I enjoy being there, working hard every day and the girls have helped me get to the position I’m in today. They have pushed me through my rehab. I literally wouldn’t have been able to get through that rehab without them. I’m happy to be here and also at my club.’