Man Utd ready to take on Man City for Viktor Gyokeres transfer after Ruben Amorim plea
Ruben Amorim wants to add firepower to his Manchester United squad - and is targeting a move for Viktor Gyokeres after working with the striker to great effect at Sporting
by Simon Mullock · The MirrorManchester United boss Ruben Amorim is set to battle it out with his close mate at Manchester City for the services of £65million-rated Sporting Lisbon striker Viktor Gyokeres.
Amorim has made the 26-year-old Swedish international his No 1 target for next summer - but City’s new sporting director Hugo Viana is also on Gyokeres’ trail.
Viana will take over the champions’ transfer business from Txiki Begiristain at the end of the season.
He was the brains behind Sporting paying Coventry £20million for Gyokeres 18 months ago - and the forward who has also been at Brighton and Swansea gave Pep Guardiola an impressive demonstration of his finishing power by hitting a hat-trick as the Portuguese club dismantled City 4-1 in the Champions League earlier this month.
Both Amorim and Viana have a close relationship with the player. Amorim has recognised that the squad he inherited from Erik ten Hag is desperately short of goals - and the promise of being United’s main man up-front will be tantalising.
Ahead of his first game in charge, he has explained that he will want a strong say over players coming into the club. United already have a sporting director in Dan Ashworth and Jason Wilcox as technical director. And while Amorim has suggested recruitment must be a collaborative process, the final decision should come with the coach.
“I think it has to be [done] all together, because if you are a coach that comes in here and already chose the players, it could be wrong because this is a football club that will be here for a long time and you as a coach, you don’t know that.
“So you have to work all together and for that we have to improve the process of recruitment. The data, the profile of the players we want but I have to have a strong position on that because I’m the coach and I know how to play so I think it’s all together but the final word, as you can say, should be with the manager – not just because it is your right but because it is your responsibility, because in the end they will ask you about the results, is to me.
“I think it’s all together, improve the process of recruitment, I have to understand the league, that is important and then when everything is aligned, everybody is on the same page, we can buy and sell players.”
Meanwhile, City are also looking to add more firepower, despite the presence of double Golden Boot winner Erling Haaland. The Blues did not replace Julian Alvarez after selling the Argentine World Cup winner to Atletico Madrid for £80million in the summer.
Gyokeres would need assurances that he isn’t being signed as a back-up for Haaland if City are to have any chance of beating their rivals to his signature.
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